Cyclone Cook Update 13-4-17

Cyclone Cook Update 13/4/2017

By Arno Dyason, Meteorologist.

Cyclone Cook has arrived in New Zealand coastal waters Thursday morning and MetService is following its movement very closely. Widespread rain continues over large parts of the country, although the heaviest and most significant falls remain closely wrapped around the low centre. MetService’s rain radar indicates that this area contains very heavy rainfall, which has moved onto Coromandel Peninsula and Bay of Plenty Thursday afternoon ahead of the low centre Thursday evening.

Cooking Up a Storm

by Meteorologist Sarah Sparks

The days are getting shorter and winter is indeed coming, but a burst of air from the tropics is set to affect New Zealand in the coming days. A combo of a Low in the Tasman Sea dragging a lot of humid, sub-tropical air down across New Zealand and the remains of Tropical Cyclone Cook tracking southwards are expected to bring heavy rain, heavy swells and possibly strong winds.

World Meteorological Day 2017: Understanding Clouds

by MetService communications meteorologist Lisa Murray

Each year meteorologists around the world celebrate a chosen theme to commemorate the anniversary of the founding of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on the 23rd of March in 1950. “Understanding Clouds” is the theme of World Meteorological Day this year, to highlight the enormous importance of clouds for weather climate and water.

New MetService Weather App on its Way!

MetService is completely re-developing NZ's most popular weather app.

The app has been developed from scratch, with a new design, navigation and functionality. In contrast to the existing Towns and Cities App which has been in market for five years, there will be no charge to download it on iPhone or Android phones. It will instead be supported by advertising. 

Why is Wellington so windy?

by MetService Meteorologist April Clark

 

Wellington is known in New Zealand, and around the world, as 'Windy Wellington' due to the frequent strong, gusty northerlies that Wellington experiences. A hardened Wellingtonian is used to the strong winds, and may even miss them when they do disappear for a few days. So, why does Wellington get such sustained strong winds? There are a number of factors which come into play that make Wellington 'the windiest city' in the world with 178 days a year gusting at or above 63 km/h.

Inversions

By Meteorologist Tom Adams.

How often have you gone to sleep on a calm night under clear skies, only to wake up and find the whole valley is full of fog?  This makes for great photos if you live above the cloud, as shown below from January 28th 2017 in Crofton Downs, Wellington, but it’s not so nice for the people living beneath the cloud.  Often the top of the fog is a smooth, flat surface, and is due to an ‘inversion’.  In this blog post we unravel what an inversion is, and why it leads to valley fog like this.