Timing is everything – so having a powerful high pressure zone arrive just at the beginning of a long weekend may make a lot of New Zealanders happy.

While the high pressure zone will encourage a colder end to the working week over the South Island and southern and eastern parts of the North Island, it will then cross the country over the three day weekend bringing mostly dry weather (especially for the North Island and upper South Island).

By Sunday, the high will encourage milder airflows back over the South Island with highs back into the 20s.

But by Monday a cooler, showery, airflow will arrive in parts of the South Island and will head northwards across the day, while the North Island remains mostly underneath high pressure, so more likely to be settled and dry the further north you are.

Long range and the next 7 days ahead look drier than average in the NZ area for this time of year although rain will return to the West Coast and into Southland too.

WeatherWatch.co.nz says New Zealand may not have any further widespread nationwide rain events for the remainder of October, with more high pressure dominating. This is something we forecast in our October ClimateWatch update three weeks ago. Only Fiordland, Westland and Southland look to have heavier rain this month. Early November may see rain moving into the upper North Island out of the sub-tropics. We’ll have more details next week about that.

For hyper-local rainfall totals and graphs, please drill down deeper at RuralWeather.co.nz.

Just how we like it before a long weekend… pic.twitter.com/temlFeLWF8

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) October 20, 2022

⚠️❄️#FrostAlert: Inland parts of both islands tonight (possibly again next week in the South Island too). Hopefully most vineyards around NZ are out of the risk zone, but double check here:
❄️NZ Frost Maps: https://t.co/Qy2A1L8KuS
📉Local Frost Forecaster: https://t.co/D35ySCBYsG pic.twitter.com/k0vTvmntM2

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) October 20, 2022

🌡️It's called "#Spring" for a reason!

"Departure from Normal" – #Temperature Maps for Friday & Saturday:

🟥🟨🟦Colour shading represents how much warmer/cooler temperatures will be compared to average.

🔢The numbers placed over NZ itself indicate the Max/Min temps expected. pic.twitter.com/SWyACZmMgk

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) October 19, 2022

• RuralWeather.co.nz / WeatherWatch.co.nz