Temperatures dived overnight in the south with Invercargill nearing the freezing mark, with just 1 degree earlier this morning.

Lumsden also shared a similar temperature with Manapouri on 3 and Dunedin Airport just 5 degrees as relatively clear skies saw any overnight warmth disappear.

“Although it’s started off crisp this morning it looks as if the south will getting a pretty reasonable week ahead with temperatures warming up nicely in Central Otago ” says weather analyst Richard Green.
“It was certainly cooler this weekend compared to last week in the south and while other parts of the country saw some miserable stuff last week, it was dry and quite hot at times over the bottom end of the country”.

Much of the nation is on the cool side this morning with the mercury resembling temperatures similar to the middle of Spring this morning.

Some showers are dotting across a few areas this morning with Northland, Buller and Westland seeing the most of the showery activity.

Elsewhere conditons are somewhat drier with sunny breaks likely for more than two thirds of the nation today.

As the week progresses, mostly dry conditions are expected with just the odd shower possible due to daytime heating which is in complete contrast to last week and for one of the few times at the beginning end of the summer that the country as a whole should be mostly settled.

Temperatures should begin to be near the December average from tomorrow through much of the rest of the week as well.

For holidaymakers heading away to their Christmas destination nice and early, the lead up to the big day is looking fairly settled for most of the nation and not too much wind is expected.