Air flow patterns are expected to tend towards a west or southwesterly flow anomaly, characteristic of El Niño conditions, as the season progresses. June may behave as a transitional month, and the ...

Heavy rainfall is one of the most frequent and widespread severe weather hazards to affect New Zealand. It is defined as rainfall greater than 100 mm in 24 hours. In New Zealand, heavy rainfall is ...

All Future Coast Aotearoa-developed games and adaptation simulations support player and participant learning. The online game is being used across councils, consultants, schools, and universities.

NIWA's work seeks to improve our understanding of the key dynamic and physical processes which are responsible for heavy rainfall , and to improve the heavy rainfall forecast. Heavy rainfall can occur ...

The tables below show the probabilities (or percent chances) for each of three categories: above average, near average, and below average. In the absence of any forecast guidance there would be an ...

The newly described Australasian Narrow-nosed Spookfish, Harriotta avia. The Australasian Narrow-nosed Spookfish was described by NIWA Fisheries Scientist Dr Brit Finucci. It was previously thought to ...

Earth Sciences New Zealand meteorologists are anticipating a significant El Niño influence on weather patterns across the country from winter onwards, potentially bringing reduced rainfall for some ...

A New Zealand-led team has completed the fullest investigation to date into January’s eruption of the underwater Tongan volcano. Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha'apai (HT-HH) emitted the biggest atmospheric ...

Stories of tremendous forest fires, huge storm events, and suffocating heatwaves have dominated headlines over the past few years. We instinctively feel that our weather is getting wilder. Are we ...

A new NIWA-led study has found that climate change increased the amount of total rainfall during Cyclone Gabrielle by 10%. This additional rain fell during the most intense parts of the storm, ...

The website Ian Wishart has based his opinions on is not New Zealand’s national climate database. Wishart has conflated the Historic Weather Events website with the New Zealand National Climate ...

Temperature 2025 was New Zealand’s 4th-warmest year on record, based on Earth Sciences New Zealand’s seven station series which begins in 1909. Annual temperatures were above average (0.51-1.20°C ...