November 2015 - Looking shifty

November 2015 - Looking shifty

"Weather patterns in November are likely to be quite shifty," said MetService Meteorologist Georgina Griffiths. "We see a change to frequent Lows over the country next week. This means many places see a relatively warm and wet start to November." Following on from an unusually dry October across much of the North Island and also the north and east of the South Island, this will be welcome news. "Most regions of the country should get some useful rain to start November. Places like Marlborough and Canterbury, which generally recorded 10 mm or less in October, may well clock up larger rainfall totals in November." Following that, a prevailing southwest regime is expected to return to New Zealand. This is likely to produce a cooler and somewhat drier flavour to the remainder of the month.

Overall, monthly rainfall totals are predicted to be normal to below normal in the east of the South Island, above normal between New Plymouth and Wellington, and near normal elsewhere.

Temperatures rapidly swing from above average at the start of November, to below average in the second week of the month. "The second half of November looks unusually cold for the time of year," stated Griffiths.

Looking further ahead, the 2015 El Nino continues to amplify in the tropics,and has yet to peak. "We expect this event will peak around December, and then ease reasonably rapidly in the first quarter of 2016," said Griffiths. "For New Zealand, expect a high frequency of westerly winds between now and Christmas."

The latest Rural Outlook can be found at www.metservice.com/rural/monthly-outlook. You can keep up to date with the latest forecasts and any watches/warnings at metservice.com or on mobile devices atm.metservice.com. You can also follow our updates on MetService TV, at MetService New Zealand on Facebook, @metservice on Twitter and at blog.metservice.com

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