The weather pattern around New Zealand is a neutral one at the moment – in other words it encourages more chaos and that’s precisely what we’re seeing with major rain makers followed by big strong highs.

While lately there perhaps hasn’t been too much of the high pressure variety for everyone’s liking the next four days or so look to be fairly settled in New Zealand as a high (also known as an anti-cyclone because the winds spin anticlockwise in the Southern Hemisphere) is moving in.

Friday and Saturday will have cool mornings but the afternoons should be a little milder than the past couple of days.

Highs don’t always bring sunny weather, especially not in the cooler darker months of Autumn, Winter and early Spring – latest satellite images suggest there may be some of that “anticyclonic gloom” possible in the western regions too (low cloud trapped under the high) as it’s currently lying under the high out over the Tasman Sea.

About 90% of New Zealand looks dry over the next three or four days (Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon) with coastal cloud and showers most likely and winds easing in the eastern regions of the North Island by Saturday.

Sunniest weather will be inland across both islands, also the east of the South Island.

The high will remain in charge until Tuesday when it slides east and is replaced by a Tasman Sea low and then, possibly (about a 70% chance at this stage) the rainy remnants of Donna as the then ex-cyclone falls apart as it leaves the tropics heading south.

– Sunday’s set up shows the large anticyclone (high) over New Zealand while a deepening low heads into the Tasman from Tasmania and Cyclone Donna tracks south away from Vanuatu.  Image / Weathermap

– WeatherWatch.co.nz