By mid-afternoon, Downes said the thermometer inside the pizza kitchen station was reading 45C.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided that conditions were pretty uncomfortable for both staff and customers so took the opportunity to close early.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the right decision given the circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
A thermometer at GodsOwn Brewery showed temperatures reaching about 45C near the pizza oven on Sunday.<\/p>\n
She said it was the first time the site had been closed because of heat.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur customers know our venue and also know that it is hot work for our pizza chef on a normal day, so we got messages of support for our decision. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many great venues to enjoy a beer in Hawke\u2019s Bay, so no one was let down.\u201d<\/p>\n
The heat and dry conditions also prompted precautionary closures elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Te Mata Park was closed from Friday night until Monday morning because of extreme fire risk, driven by strong winds, low humidity and very dry ground following weeks without significant rain. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Splash Planet had a surge in visitors.<\/p>\n
A Hastings District Council spokesperson said attendance has been between 1500 and 2000 every day since Wednesday, with 1729 on Sunday.<\/p>\n
MetService meteorologist John Law said the official numbers didn\u2019t fully reflect how hot it felt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe take our temperatures in the shade, so it would feel hotter in the direct sunlight,\u201d Law said.<\/p>\n
He said humidity and light winds can make it harder for the body to cool down, while inland areas often feel hotter than coastal spots.<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, Law said conditions would ease in the following days.<\/p>\n
\u201cTemperatures this week, while still a few degrees above average for the time of year, will be cooler than we saw last week.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says the January average maximum temperature for Hawke\u2019s Bay is around 25C. Highs of 28-29C are expected in Napier and Hastings early this week before gradually easing toward the weekend.<\/p>\n
While the warmer weather did lead to an increase in electricity demand compared with other summer weekends, Unison said it posed no risk to the network.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the weekend\u2019s heat and higher electricity demand, our network continued to operate well within normal limits, with no heat-related outages,\u201d operations manager Ed Brown said.<\/p>\n
An unplanned outage affecting 26 customers on Waitara Rd was carried out at Fire and Emergency New Zealand\u2019s request, as crews worked near a vegetation fire in Te Haroto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By mid-afternoon, Downes said the thermometer inside the pizza kitchen station was reading 45C. \u201cWe decided that conditions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1561,26861,545,1976,3191,111,43,139,69,57343],"class_list":["post-229306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-bay","tag-brewery","tag-extreme","tag-hawkes","tag-heat","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-shuts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229306","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=229306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}