The polar southerly dominates our weather this week – but by Friday some parts of the South Island will be drier, calmer and slightly warmer during the day as a high rolls in from the Tasman Sea – this high will then cover most of New Zealand by Saturday.

Big Frosts Coming
With a high rolling in straight after an Antarctic snap it means drier weather for most places – and clearer skies inland. It also means we can expect severe frosts through the interior of both islands and heavy frosts right down to the coastlines for sheltered areas.

Frosts may extend as far north as sheltered parts of Auckland and Northland on Saturday morning.

In areas where there has been snow on the roads, watch for black ice overnight as melted snow re-freezes. 

Weekend Showers
The weekend isn’t 100% dry with the polar southerly still bringing a few remaining showers to Gisborne and possibly the very eastern tip of Northland (north of the Bay of Islands).  A few showers are possible in the south western corner of the South Island on Sunday.  Elsewhere should be completely dry or mainly dry.

Warmer Next Week:
WeatherWatch.co.nz forecasters say the weekend high will linger into Monday and Tuesday for most of New Zealand with a much warmer, sub-tropical northerly wind flow spreading down across the entire nation by the start or middle of next week.  

A Tasman Sea low will likely cross central NZ bringing ‘warm’ rain on Thursday to many areas, then Friday and into next weekend looks as though it’s back to the usual south west flow which encourges dry weather in the east and showery weather in the south and west.

– Image / WeatherWatch

– WeatherWatch.co.nz