The big wet across the weekend and the past 24 hours will today be replaced by a high moving in from the Tasman Sea bringing mostly dry weather and more average temperatures to the country for the rest of the week.

Apart from a few showers remaining in coastal extremes such as Southland, Fiordland and East Cape and the Far North the trend for the next five days is mostly dry.

Head weather analyst Philip Duncan says we’re now in a new phase of weather.  “For the past couple of months our weather was dominated by big highs over Tasmania which then crossed the South Island.  It brought a combination of snowy cold snaps and frosty blue sky days.  Now we seem to be in more of a westerly pattern which tends to be milder with less cold events”.

“The highs are crossing central and northern New Zealand bringing more westerlies to the south and less southerlies to the north”.

Last week Philip Duncan said parts of eastern and northern New Zealand would feel “spring like” as the predicted warm winds moved in over the weekend and start of this week. 

On Sunday Christchurch reached 22 degrees.

WeatherWatch.co.nz contacted NIWA on Monday who confirmed the temperatures were infact record breaking – at least for the airport weather station.

NIWA says Christchurch Airport recorded a maximum temperature of 22.4C on Sunday. “This is a new July record for the airport” Georgina Griffiths told WeatherWatch.co.nz.  “…in records starting 1954 at the airport, the previous July maximum temperature was 21.7C, recorded on 30/7/1998”.

However the city itself has been warmer, with Sunday coming in as the second hottest July day on record.  “Comparing against all other Christchurch stations in the vicinity, this rates as the 2nd-highest maximum temperature for July, in a number of records starting 1863” Georgina Griffiths told us.

WeatherWatch.co.nz says the settled weather is predicted to linger into the weekend when conditions may start to go down hill in the north thanks to a large but weak area of low pressure which may drift past northern regions.  The South Island may also see conditions going down hill in the south and west as the large high departs out to the east.

– Homepage image / File, David Hawke

– WeatherWatch.co.nz, NIWA