Christchurch continues to sizzle in the sun
Christchurch continues to bask in unusually high autumn temperatures, with a 28 degrees Celsius start to the week.
MetService meteorologist Arno Dyason said the warmweather was caused by a northerly flow across the South Island.
‘‘The South Island is getting northerly to north west winds which always bring really nice, warm, mostly clear days.’’
Dyason said the past few days had been unusually hot for early autumn. Ashburton had the highest temperature in the South Island on Sunday, with a high of 30.5C. Christchurch had 30C, after a high of 29.7C on Saturday.
The average maximum March temperature for Christchurch was 20.3C.
‘‘It’s not totally uncommon, it happens, but it’s probably just a little bit warmer than usual for these two days.’’
Despite a warm-start to the week, Dyason said the weather would drop slightly as the week progressed, with rain possible on Wednesday.
‘‘Cooler probably isn’t the right word because it’s still going to be 26C, 25C, 24C which is still nice and warm.
‘‘You’re going to get a lot of rain on the West Coast, but it’s really going to be patchy, so anything that moves to the east of the South Island will really just be a few spots of rain if anything.’’
Christchurch resident Ken Booth and his wife were cooling down with an icecream at the Margaret Mahy playground. ‘‘Perhaps a bit hot, but still it won’t last forever and when winter comes we will be looking forward to the summer again.
‘‘At the moment, this Indian summer late March is really enjoyable.’’
Richard Monk, who was at the playground with his children, said he had spent most of the weekend trying to avoid the heat. ‘‘I’ve been at home trying to get out of the heat . . . then today we took a spontaneous trip to the playground.’’