Autumn weather is well and truly here – with cooler nights and cloudier mornings being some of the firts obvious signs.

With the nights now longer than the days it makes sense that more of the days warmth is lost overnight – making for cooler starts when we wake up.

Daylight Saving ends in just over a week (first Sunday of April) – that will “give” people an hour of extra sunlight in the morning for a few more weeks, but will mean an hour less of sunlight in the evenings.  Many people reference “losing an hour of sunlight” due to this clock shift.

“Far more places are waking up to single digit lows across both islands this week” says head weather analyst Philip Duncan.  “The warm to hot afternoons, mild seas and cooler, longer, nights all equate to a much higher chance of morning cloud and fog across big parts of the country”.

Mr Duncan says the sun is still strong enough to burn the cloud off as the days go on – but that cloudier weather was a part of Autumn.  “We have a lot of high pressure around the nation over the next couple of weeks so while that means mostly dry it also means calm, settled and cloudier”.

WeatherWatch.co.nz continues to track the rain makers – and while some shower activity, or patchty rain, is likely next week on the South Island’s West Coast little to none is expected for the driest parts of the North Island.

– Homepage image / File, Zelda Wynn

– WeatherWatch.co.nz