A rapidly deepening low pressure system, partly made up from the remnants of the deadly New South Wales storm, is today moving towards New Zealand and will cross the country over Monday and Tuesday.

It will bring isolated thunderstorms along the Tasman Sea, strong to gale force nor’westers to central and eastern ares and periods of heavy rain and showers for northern and western New Zealand.

As WeatherWatch.co.nz exclusively forecast several days ago, the low is likely to generate pockets of severe weather across the country on Anzac Monday. MetService has this weekend issued a number of severe weather warnings, from heavy rain warnings in Bay of Plenty all the way down to rain warnings for the head waters of the Otago Lakes, and wind warnings for the Wellington area.

Strongest winds will be in central New Zealand and eastern areas.

WeatherWatch.co.nz says the rain will be welcome in our drought zones – with spillover expected not only into the waterways of Otago and Canterbury but rain itself likely to spillover onto dry farms also.

“This isn’t a repeat of the New South Wales storm, but it doesnt contain some of the same volatility, so all New Zealanders should be up to date with current warnings, watches – and just the general outlook over the next few days” says head weather analyst Philip Duncan.  “Thunderstorms are possible, especially along the western coastline near the Tasman Sea on Monday, with cooler weather moving across the country on Tuesday and Wednesday on the back end of the system”.

WeatherWatch.co.nz