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The Muster- Phil Duncan: Weather Watch · The Muster on Hokonui

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Phil Duncan of Weatherwatch joins us, as he does every
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Friday here on the muster.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: And I'm here to remind you of the mess you
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: left when you went away. It's not fair to deny
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: me of the cry.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Good afternoon, Phil.
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: Good afternoon.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: It's been a couple of weeks. I've got to be
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: up front with you, Phil. We've had a pretty good
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: spell of weather since we haven't been talking.
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the weatherman goes away at good times. I'm good
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: at doing that. Yeah, it was cold. It got cold
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: at the end. I know that because I was up
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: in far north Queensland, up in the tropical area. And
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: we were getting alerts on my Weather Watch app for
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: back home in New Zealand saying a frost is possible
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: in Auckland. Like, what? What on earth is going on
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: back in New Zealand? So, yeah, we're back into a
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: cold run of weather at the moment. But things are
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: going to warm back up again. We're not completely stuck
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: in this place.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not overly warm today. Summer sports starts tomorrow,
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Saturday sports for that matter. So, yeah, it's going to
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: be cold.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the temperatures are lifting back up again. Today is
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: a cold day. I describe today as a wintry day
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: for the South Island. I don't use that term too loosely. So,
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: you know, that's usually when you're seeing a number of
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: places with single-digit temperatures. For example, Gore today. So it
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: is a cold day. But it does bounce back up tomorrow.
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: So our maximum for Gore is 7 today. I think
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: it could go higher than that. But you get the idea.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: It's not overly warm. Tonight's low is 3. That's not
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: very warm. But tomorrow bounces back up to 16 and
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: Sunday bounces back up to 19. And by the time
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: we get to the middle of next week, Wednesday and Thursday,
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: we could be back into the 20s again. So we
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: are definitely seeing the temperatures lift back up. Not necessarily
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: every single day, but today stands out as being a
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: particularly cold day, as was yesterday. So, yes, it is
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: cold and it's wet. You're getting these downpours, these areas
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: of rain moving on through at the moment. They'll break
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: up as we go through today, and you'll get some
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: longer dry spells coming back in again. But yeah, we're
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: caught up in a proper wintry southwesterly wind that's coming up,
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: being dredged up from well south of New Zealand.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Is this El Niño?
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: Probably, yeah. El Niño, you know, something I said in
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: another interview today, El Niño does get a lot of headlines,
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: and it deserves it, because it does produce some significant weather.
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: But the biggest difference between El Niño and its opposite,
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: La Niña, is the weather is not usually as dramatic.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: So La Nina, that's the opposite, right? That produces all
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: that humidity. We get lots of thunderstorms and big downpours,
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: and we get tropical cyclones more likely. That's what we
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: get with La Nina. So it's kind of, you know,
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: lots to talk about. El Nino is boring. El Nino
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: doesn't produce that really exciting weather very often. Quite often,
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: it just extends the spring and autumn weather. So we
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: end up with more days with westerlies. And if they're
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: northwesterlies and they're subtropical, it's hot and pushing temperatures up
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: above normal. But it only has to swing a little
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: bit to what we've got today, a west-southwesterly, and it's
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: cold and it's winter-like and produces cloud and showers. So
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: El Nino is not as spectacular, but what it can
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: do is produce over many months, sort of death by
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: paper cuts, really, you start to notice, oh, wow, we're
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: getting into a very dry situation. Or if You might
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: notice when you get those nor'westers or those northerlies, wow,
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: it's warm today. It's much warmer than usual. But then
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: three days later, you get a cold change come back
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: in again. So it's not quite as headlining and as
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: exciting as what La Nina gets. But El Nino is
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: noticeable over time. And so your comment is this El Nino. Yes,
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: it is. And we're seeing it perhaps more so in
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: the North Island with drier weather kicking in. We're seeing
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: a number of regions that are drier than usual now,
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: like Northland and Bay of Plenty and Waikato, Manawatu. In
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: the South Island, you're actually leaning a bit wetter than
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: usual or you're about where you should be from a
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: soil moisture point of view. But what you're noticing more
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: in the South Island, cold fronts. The cold fronts bringing
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: heavy west coast rain and some spillover into Southland and
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: some spillover into Otago. That's what we're noticing over the
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: last couple of months as our new year starts to
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: set in.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: So what are we seeing for November based on that?
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: Is it going to be wetter and cooler?
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: I think that we're going to have a variety. I
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: don't necessarily think it'll be cooler than usual, but you
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: will have a higher chance than perhaps previous years of
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: getting these wintry blasts like we're getting right now. I mean,
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: we get those, certainly Southlands and Otago get them right
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: through spring. But I think usually by the time we're
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: past Labor Day and we're going into November, they're pretty
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: few and far between. This year, they might be a
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: little more regular. So you may still get a cold
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: front every or twice a week, maybe, brushing the island.
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: So we're not completely finished with these colder changes, but
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: I think we'll start to notice more days in between
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: where we're getting back into the 20s. But it is
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: fair to say that El Nino, it's all about that wind,
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: that westerly wind direction for you guys. And so a
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: west to northwesterly is warm, a west to southwesterly is not.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: And there's a fine line between those two. So I
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: think that's what you should be kind of psychologically preparing
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: for as we go in towards November and December.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: OK, how long is this weather system supposed to be
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: around for?
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: Well, we've got our Nino right through to probably the
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: start of winter of next year. So it's peaking this month,
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: or November it peaks. So it may be peaking around
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: the end of November and going into the start of
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: December and then it will start to taper off. But
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: it's the summer months and the early autumn months that
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: we often notice it the most in New Zealand because
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: that's when regions that are drying out start to say, hey,
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: where is the rain? And we're looking at more of
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: the same coming through. So that's where it becomes a problem.
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: For you guys, I don't think rainfall is yet a problem.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: We're obviously getting rain today and we've got more on
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: the way. In fact, over the next 10 days, There's
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: not huge amounts, but there's between sort of 15 and
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: 30 millimetres coming through. So it's a regular top-up of
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: showers and sort of downpours like you're getting today, then
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: dry for a few days and then it comes back,
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: or dry for a day or two and then it
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: comes back. So it's a very typical spring weather pattern
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: for Southland and Otago and Fiordland and Westland. right through
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: the next month.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: Now, as you look at your Weather Watch Generator 5000
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: Weather Tron, which has linked to some pretty significant satellites
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: up in the sky, if you were to summarise the
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: weather for the next two weeks down here in the south,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: what would you say?
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: Variety. You've got a variety. You've got a bit of
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: everything coming through, which is not the case for all
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: other parts of the country. So you've got the four
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: seasons in one week kind of thing. And I think
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: that's probably the easiest way to sum it up for you.
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: We're on the edge of a lot of systems as well.
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: So we're not getting high pressure parked over us. We're
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: on the edge of highs. That's another thing that El
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: Nino does. We get a lot of high pressure in
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: the Tasman Sea. We get a lot of high pressure
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: just north of New Zealand. But the number of highs
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: that park themselves right over the top of us usually reduces,
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: especially now in spring.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: Phil Duncan of Weather Watch, we always appreciate your time
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: on the muster.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: You enjoy your weekend.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: Will do, man. You too.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: Phil Duncan of Weatherwatch, home of the Weathertron. Up next
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: on the muster, we're away to Riversdale. We're catching up
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: with Andrew Cochran of NSVETS.