Feel a bit sleep deprived? It’s been a long week New Zealand – between the midnight M7.8 quake, the hundreds of powerful aftershocks, the thunderstorms, gales and flooding rains and hail… it’s been a tough week for many Kiwi’s trying to sleep, especially those in the upper South Island and lower North Island, around 1 million people.

The problem with a week like this on the body is that it has a bit of a cumulative effect – the more days that go by without solid sleep the more emotional we get. We’ve seen your comments on social media to us, desperate for a break in the weather on top of the earthquakes.

So WeatherWatch.co.nz wanted to be first to give you an optimistic sleeping forecast.

While we can’t forecast what happens under the ground we can forecast what happens above it – and the long range forecast sees much better weather coming for New Zealand, especially if you live in Wellington which has been knocked around a lot this week with the wild weather and being damaged to some degree by the South Island quakes.

New Zealand may be 9 days away from the next severe weather event – considering it’s spring and considering how rough this week has been, the break will be welcome by many.  

North Islanders you also have a break in the rain which has been…well…fairly relentless lately with a wetter than average La Nina pattern already kicking in.

This week a south west flow covers NZ – this dries out the east coast and Wellington – but does leave a few showers in the west.  But by Sunday and Monday – then through until next Thursday – we have high pressure dominating most of New Zealand and mainly dry, settled, warm weather.

We’ll keep you up to date with any changes – it is spring after-all and a sudden big downpour can always flare up. But overall, especially in the areas hit hardest by the earthquakes and severe weather this week, the weather looks settled and quiet for the next week.

Image / The 7 day total rainfall forecast shows areas in red/pink having less than average (dry) and blue is more than average (wetter). Note how Kaikoura to Wellington are especially dry / US Govt.

– WeatherWatch.co.nz