El Niño continues to slowly form but the weather pattern in NZ still looks to be wetter and warmer for the month of June as a chaotic, neutral, weather pattern continues on this month.

Despite June kicking off with colder airflows from the south, the long term trend is for milder than average airflows to return, says the latest outlook from WeatherWatch.co.nz

"At least two large low pressure zones look to cross New Zealand in the first half of June bringing variety in wind directions, temperatures and rainfall - but most places receiving rain and leaning wetter than average," says a spokesperson for the weather organisation.

"It looks as though, generally speaking, NZ has about 60 to 200mm coming over the first half of June - this is still leaning wetter than average for many regions.

"In fact, most of the North Island and half of the South Island may be wetter than normal - and all of NZ looks to be half a degree to over 1 degree above normal temperature-wise this coming month."

WeatherWatch.co.nz says the chaotic pattern in NZ means we have distinct lack of frosts so far this year, across both islands and including the Deep South which has had very few below zero nights.

In fact some places didn't have a frost in Autumn 2023, which is remarkable.

"Australia's weather pattern, however, is increasingly looking more El Niño-like, with high pressure being fairly stubborn over the northern half of the country, and rainfall in the southern half of Australia being normal to even below normal.

"This drier weather pattern to our west is expected to drift more eastwards over NZ later this year. Aussie's big highs have brought a number of frosty nights to VIC, NSW and even inland QLD. In fact, on the last day of Autumn (May 31) Brisbane was colder than Dunedin at dawn.

"Over the coming months WeatherWatch.co.nz expects El Niño to develop, which should encourage more high pressure in the Tasman Sea and north of NZ, and more westerlies over NZ itself.

"This set up tends to make the West Coast wetter, the North Island's west coast showery and cloudier (but sometimes drier than average) and eastern and inland parts of New Zealand much drier and warmer than usual.

"That's the text book set-up for El Niño anyway, but of course we're basically two large mountainous islands partially in the Roaring Forties - so we've still got a fair amount of chaos to contend with too."

WeatherWatch.co.nz says that the general trend for June indicates a big variety of highs and lows in the NZ area and shows we're not yet in an El Niño weather pattern... its still very much chaotic and neutral for New Zealand.