Wellington residents are being urged to prepare for the possibility of extreme water restrictions this summer.
The combination of leaky pipes and warmer-than-average weather conditions is putting huge pressure on the city's water supply.
"It does look like Wellington is on track for warmer and dryer conditions than normal, so plenty of these days to come yet," NIWA meteorologist Tristan Meyers said.
While that may sound good now, NIWA is warning temperatures will soar.
"It's really looking like we're going to hit those mid 30C marks, there's significant signs of early season heat building in December and that'll continue in January and persist into February," Meyers added.
And that's got authorities worried about the capital's water supply, especially as they're also losing nearly half of that supply to leaky pipes.
"There's a 24 percent chance that when we head into the drier months that we might need to ask people to go into level four restrictions," Wellington Water chief executive Tonia Haskell said.
The region's currently under level one restrictions, meaning people can only use their sprinklers every second day.
But level four is significantly more extreme.
"There's no outdoor use, so no washing your car, no watering the garden and we look at what we're doing inside the house, thinking about how many washing cycles we use and shorter showers," Haskell explained.
Civil Defence is now monitoring the situation and is urging people to start conserving water now.
"We all have an ability to reduce our water consumption and if we all take small steps now, we can reduce the risk of this happening," Wellington Civil Defence regional manager Jeremy Holmes said.
