Cool spring predicted

Press, 22 August 1987, Page 2

Cool spring predicted

PA Wellington A cool spring and a windy summer should follow the unusually mild winter, according to the weather office. The summer is likely to have stronger westerlies than usual and to be dry in eastern parts of the North Island, especially Hawke’s Bay and Wairarapa. These unusual conditions should follow a winter which gave dry weather over most of the North Island, and mild conditions over the whole country. Rainfall has been about

40 per cent below normal over the North Island, and over-all temperatures have been about a degree above average. Meteorologists attribute the unusual winter, and prospects for an abnormal spring and summer, to the presence of El Nino in the Pacific. El Nino is a warming of the surface waters of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean, and is associated with significant changes to the pressure distribution and weather conditions across the Pacific from South America to Australia.' . I