We’re at the end of 2019 and the start of 2020 and a new decade. We have the final forecast for New Year’s Eve and now an update for New Year’s Day.

The forecast for New Year’s Eve is one of the most straightforward ones in several years with dry weather expected everywhere.

A few showers may reach Fiordland by midnight then rain sets in overnight with a few spits, or patchy rain, moving into Southland overnight and into New Year’s Day.

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HOT FOR SOME

Southland and Otago look set to have a hot New Year’s Eve. Gore is forecast to reach 28 degrees on Tuesday while Central Otago will climb into the low 30s. Alexandra has a high of 32, Queenstown and Invercargill both have 26 and Cromwell 31.

Wanaka has a high of 29 on Tuesday, 27 in Hanmer Springs.

However Christchurch only has a high of around 20..but New Year’s Day Christchurch heats up to over 30 degrees.

The North Island won’t be as hot on New Year’s Eve but will still be warm and the weather warms up further as the week goes on.

Auckland has sunnier weather for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – ahead of a windier, cloudier weekend and week next week. On New Year’s Day Taupo, Hamilton and the Bay of Islands have highs of 27, Rotorua 28 and Whangamata sunny with 25 or 26.

Most of New Zealand leans warmer than normal on New Year’s Day.

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NEW YEARS DAY:

On New Year’s Day a weak front falls apart over Fiordland with some patchy rain into Southland – or showers. Otago may have a few showers, or spits, on New Year’s Day too. The system will very slowly move up the South Island across Wednesday but won’t get far.

Ahead of this system windier weather surges north and this sees places like Christchurch warm up an additional 10 degrees or more from Tuesday to Wednesday, or to put it another way: From 2019 to 2020!

This windier weather moving in may linger for some places until week two of January.

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Need to make sense of this locally? Use the WeatherWatch.co.nz hourly forecasts up to 10 days out. Or, use RuralWeather.co.nz (takes 10 seconds to initially load) as this has more weather data for any NZ location than any other website.

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9PM NEW YEAR’S EVE:

12 NOON NEW YEAR’S DAY:

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– WeatherWatch.co.nz