{"id":223576,"date":"2026-01-08T17:33:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T17:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/223576\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T17:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T17:33:12","slug":"more-heatwaves-likely-as-climate-change-drives-hotter-summers-across-aotearoa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/223576\/","title":{"rendered":"More heatwaves likely as climate change drives hotter summers across Aotearoa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heat alerts have been issued for Whakat\u0101ne, Napier, Hastings, Motueka, Blenheim, and Kaik\u014dura. <\/p>\n

\"ScorchingScorching temperatures reaching the high 30s are already beginning to arrive. Photo \/ MetService<\/p>\n

Earth Sciences New Zealand\u2019s manager of climate, atmosphere and hazards, Nava Fedaeff, told the Herald warmer temperatures are set to continue.<\/p>\n

She warned that the likelihood of serious heatwaves in New Zealand will increase, causing a threat to health, animals and agriculture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the longer-term projections are that the number of extreme heat days and heat waves are going to increase in New Zealand,\u201d Fedaeff said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will see new temperature records and things like that set in the future, not necessarily with this event coming, but something of that flavour,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Fedaeff said we may even see another heatwave-like event this summer.<\/p>\n

\"MetServiceMetService said these sweaty temperatures are caused by the remnants of the Australian heatwave earlier this week. Photo \/ Getty Images <\/p>\n

What brings these temperatures to New Zealand? <\/p>\n

Fedaeff said that when extreme heat events impact New Zealand, it typically starts with hot weather over Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s generally a high pressure over Australia … They have got a lot of continental heat, and then it needs to come our way.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said we would need to have a westerly or a northwesterly wind flow to bring the warm air over us.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of those things kind of need to come together, which is more on the weather time scale. We know that these types of weather patterns do occur quite frequently in the summer,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Fedaeff said New Zealand has reached 40C on only three days in its history, whereas such high temperatures are significantly more common across the ditch and in Europe.<\/p>\n

\"AA fire at Tangoio in January 2020 during a devastating heatwave and bushfires in Australia. The hottest temperature in Hawke’s Bay that month was 36.3C in Wairoa.<\/p>\n

Hot start for 2026 <\/p>\n

For the first few months of this year, above-average temperatures will be experienced particularly in the north and west of the North Island.<\/p>\n

The Earth Sciences seasonal climate outlook for January to March also indicated above-average rainfall for the north and east of the North Island, and below-average rainfall for the west of the South Island.<\/p>\n

Fedaeff said that at the start of the year, a weak La Nina will be at play over the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means we get more northerly and northeasterly winds, so more weather from the tropics, which is a warm place.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the factors that contribute or have historically contributed to NZ having a hot year include warm seas.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarine heat wave conditions, which are in play now, and they don\u2019t turn off as quickly as air temperatures do,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Fedaeff said our temperatures are also impacted by our warming climate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe already have this massive boost from climate change. That means that we\u2019re starting off on a warmer note just because we\u2019ve loaded that dice already,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe hottest temperatures are expected in Hawke\u2019s Bay on Sunday, with 37C forecast for Hastings and 35C for Napier. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n

This comes after 2025 was named as the country\u2019s fourth-hottest year on record, according to Earth Sciences\u2019 annual climate report.<\/p>\n

The report found that most regions were hotter than average by between 0.51 and 1.2C, but parts of Northland and Bay of Plenty were significantly hotter, by more than 1.2C.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heat alerts have been issued for Whakat\u0101ne, Napier, Hastings, Motueka, Blenheim, and Kaik\u014dura. Scorching temperatures reaching the high…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2840,6127,12889,11429,806,6726,52364,12974,4442,52606,5658,23855,3191,36009,2959,13493,120,130,111,43,139,69,13608,124153,2848,9100,14166,38666,1361,26697],"class_list":["post-223576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-across","tag-already","tag-aotearoa","tag-arrive","tag-as","tag-become","tag-beginning","tag-change","tag-climate","tag-drives","tag-experts","tag-frequent","tag-heat","tag-heatwaves","tag-high","tag-hotter","tag-likely","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-reaching","tag-scorching","tag-severe","tag-such","tag-summers","tag-temperatures","tag-that","tag-warn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}