It might be smack bang at the end of January but on Tuesday morning a mid-summer frost greeted some residents along the Kapiti Coast in the lower North Island – and the cool mornings are set to continue says WeatherWatch.co.nz.

“Put simply NZ and Australia are sharing the same highs this summer – so they’re getting the hot northerly flow and we’re getting the cooler southerly flow” says head weather analyst Philip Duncan.  “These big highs have a big reach – by that I mean they can scoop up air from the tropics and dump that over Aussie, while at the same time scooping up colder air from the Southern Ocean and spreading that across New Zealand”.

Stormy lows in the Southern Ocean are helping fuel this wind flow further, with a lack of highs centred over New Zealand this summer to push back.

The southerly wind direction is making for cooler starts.  Single digital lows are affecting northern New Zealand too – sometimes at this time of the year overnight lows are hovering around the late teens and low 20s, not the low double digits and single digits with North Island frosts.

However the south and south west wind flows can make for fantastic daytime weather.  The shift from south west to southerly in Auckland has seen the clouds mostly burn up.  A slight change back to a sou’wester will see cloudy spells return.

The sou’west flow also gives many eastern areas and northern areas of both islands mostly sunny weather with hot afternoons – a bit like an early autumn pattern (which this is not…to be fair the spring pattern never really stopped!).

Some warmer overnight lows are in the forecast over the next week, but generally speaking expect more of the same temperatures across the country for the next week.

– Map / Temperature map for Thursday morning, blue shading indicates single digit temperatures! / weathermap

– WeatherWatch.co.nz