Winter Outlook 2025 -It could be a wild ride!

WINTER OUTLOOK 2025 – GET READY FOR SOME VARIETY IN THE WEATHER

This Winter could bring a bit of everything on to our plate. It will be like grabbing the extra big plate at the smorgasbord to get a sample of everything from the buffet. This Winter’s weather will feature lots of variety from the risk of heavy extreme rainfall, to Antarctic cold and some fine settled days in between. This Winter will feature quite a bit of variety because of no set driving force to the Winter’s weather.

This Winter we will have lots of other factors which will jostle for space on our weather maps each week. The main driver that can influence our weather ENSO – El Nino Southern Oscillation has now tilted back to the middle of the scale. Mid way between the La Nina of last year and El Nino at Neutral. In a meteorological sense that means the Pacific Ocean instead of being too warm or too cold is just in the middle. So, in other words instead of a predominant El Nino westerly push with the winds across New Zealand or more easterlies in a La Nina we could have both if not other directions this Winter too.

The big pink elephant in the room leading into the Winter is the warmer than normal seas around New Zealand and many of the surrounding areas that help produce our weather systems. They are currently running 1-4C above normal. Our warming planet has been making this quite commonplace these days. Think of warmer seas like that hotter tub of bath water with rising steam – it has more rising air, because of the warmer water which can lead to more vertical motion to help create clouds and weather systems.

The warmer than normal seas will act as a bit of extra fuel for incoming weather systems this Winter, but the mix of the coming Winter Weather systems could be quite interesting too.

The extreme rainfall events of Nelson and Taree, NSW, Australia are very recent memories but a very good reminder of the stacked deck of cards that the weather now throws our way during heavy rain events. Not just the warm seas but the more significant feed of juicy air from the tropics and the right conditions for low pressure development quite often play a part in these rainfall events. More extreme rainfall events could not be out of the realm of possibilities again over the coming Winter.

The Winter weather will have a mix of different types of weather during the season so the extra thick Merino as well as the sunglasses and thinner layers will come in handy. Of course, the raincoats will be a big go to at times too. Overall, the Winter will be warmer than normal thanks to the surrounding seas but that won’t completely keep the cold winter outbreaks air from making a visit at time too. This will especially be the case when a lobe of the all too familiar Polar Vortex rotates into the Southern Ocean. Brrr! The skiers might find some decent snowfall at time too with the right moisture feed coinciding with these cold surges.

So, get ready for Winter It looks like it could a wild ride.