*Apologies, we have no weather video today. We will return on Friday — A large low south-east of Dunedin and a high pressure zone over the Tasman Sea puts a windy ‘squash zone’ over New Zealand for Thursday, boosting the heat again in the eastern North Island, but ushering in a cooler change for many in the South Island. Over the days ahead things ease back a bit, but by Sunday and Monday a storm near southern NZ will create some severe weather risks.

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Let’s get into the forecast for Thursday to start with…

RAIN:
Most of NZ is dry or mainly dry today, but a few showers move up the western North Island and perhaps down around Southland and Stewart Island.

WIND:
There is a west to south-west flow over NZ, but some areas may still have windy and fairly warm to hot nor-westers, especially the eastern North Island from Wairarapa to East Cape. Southland has a windier and cooler south-west flow

TEMPERATURES:
Temperatures are down over much of the South Island on Thursday and perhaps the western North Island. The upper South Island, like Nelson and Marlborough, along with the eastern and northern parts of the North Island remain warm to hot. In fact Hawke’s Bay may well climb into the early to mid 30s today before a cooler change arrives there on Friday.

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DAYS AHEAD
On Friday and Saturday cooler air makes things a big more refreshing for many places as high pressure moves closer to NZ with a west to south-west flow – but it’s short lived with a likely storm south of the South Island on Sunday and Monday driving in yet another burst of wind and rain over the South Island from the west and keeping many eastern areas mild to hot and windier at times. Severe weather warnings for heavy West Coast rain and gale nor-westers across the South Island are looking likely this Sunday, and by early Monday we might even get a dusting of snow on the southern ranges as this storm south of NZ dredges up a brief southerly.

Tuesday sees NZ’s weather settling down again as high pressure in the Tasman Sea drifts closer.

As always if we’re not talking about your region there isn’t a lot of weather happening. Don’t forget to drill down deeper with your hyper-local, hourly, 10 day forecasts by downloading the FREE WeatherWatch App.