Many New Zealanders will notice a slightly cooler start to the week thanks to a sou’westerly flow that followed a cold front passing over the weekend.

Temperatures were down nationally yesterday as the cooler air spread across the country.  The mix of hot and cold weather produced fantastic lightning, thunder and hail storms across Christchurch and surrounding towns on Sunday afternoon.  At one point almost 2000 lightning strikes were recorded in just 60 minutes.

Today sees those slightly cooler sou’westerlies continuing but they will ease over the next 24 hours.

A large high is moving in from the Tasman Sea and will bring settled weather to the North Island first, before spreading to the South Island later tomorrow and into Wednesday.

By Thursday much of the country will be under the high and with westerlies prevailing eastern areas should be hot and sunny again.  The high is drifting in from Australia bringing with it much warmer air so the North Island’s inland and eastern areas may benefit the most from this system.