Spring unleashes cold, wet blast after mild winter

It has been a wet start to spring with heavy rain and strong winds, but Rotorua experienced a warmer and drier winter than normal.

Rain fell throughout Rotorua and the Bay of Plenty for most of yesterday, with strong winds battering those brave enough to go outside and wind gusts reaching more than 40km/h at times.

Rotorua weatherman Brian Holden said winter had been slightly warmer than usual.

The last month of winter usually tallies temperatures at an average of 8.6C, although this August topped that by almost one degree, coming in at an average of 9.4C.

The highest temperature for August was a comfortable 17.3C on the last day of the month, with the low of -0.7C coming in just days before on August 29. There were also frosts on four days.

"This August has been very wet, but not really any wetter than normal. We had a lot of rain but that's par for the course for July and August.

"We had a few frosts overall for winter. We had more this year than previous recent years which makes you think, 'hold on, we've had a warmer few months than normal', but the simple reason is we've had a lot of brilliant fine days and clear skies, which gets cold very quickly. Consequently in the mornings we wake up to a frost."

The wettest days, unsurprising to those around the city who experienced flooding, were on the weekend of August 11 and 12, measuring 43mm and 30mm of rain respectively. On the other wet days of the month, rainfall was all under 10mm each day, totalling 139mm of rain throughout the month.

Total rainfall for the month was down on the 148mm Rotorua normally has for August.

Mr Holden said there were usually two or three flooding events each winter.

"We had 73mm of rain basically in one lot. It's that which really bumped up the rainfall, it's that what causes flooding, so much rain in a small amount of time. For the rest of the month, the rain was fairly widespread."

Mr Holden said 21mm of rain had fallen by mid-afternoon yesterday. The day's stormy weather should begin to calm down today, with the MetService predicting both showers and fine spells throughout the day, with gusty westerlies.

Tomorrow, Rotorua should get a few drizzles and strong westerlies, and by Thursday, it's expected to be sunny with the occasional cloudy period until next Wednesday.