A windy week is on the way for many parts of New Zealand as very large and powerful winter storms grow over the Southern Ocean and parts of coastal Antarctica. High pressure remains over central Australia and to the north of NZ. In a nutshell this means for a large part of Southern Australia and over to New Zealand windy spring-like westerlies will surge off and on.

Let’s get into the forecast for Monday…

RAIN:
Theres a bit of wet weather in central parts of western NZ on Monday, coming in off the Tasman Sea mostly between Taranaki and the upper South Island. Elsewhere most places are dry or mainly dry.

WIND:
West to Nor’west winds will be the theme of the week ahead but for Monday those nor’westers will be most brisk in the lower North Island. A light northerly develops in southern NZ.

TEMPERATURES:
The wind and the wind direction means this is a mild week ahead. It’s possible at higher elevation locations in the lower South Island there might be in for a light frost on Monday or Tuesday morning but for most this week will be warmer than average.

5 DAYS AHEAD:
A major storm brushing Antarctica will have central air pressure down to 926hPa on Wednesday for a time, according to GFS modelling which has been picking 916 to 936hPa for this developing storm since last week. With the centre of this storm so far away from NZ it means many populated places won’t have huge rainfall totals – but those gale to severe gale winds will stretch up and blow as far north as NSW and our North Island. And because of this near continuous westerly flow, rain will build up on the West Coast with 200 to 400mm possible there and 100 to 200mm around Mt Taranaki and the Tararua Ranges over the next several days.

These spring-like windy westerlies will surge off and on for potentially the next two weeks, with some lulls, taking us well into September with some brief colder surges in the mix. But, usually westerlies bring milder weather than usual (in part thanks to airflows coming out of Australia). Those nearest to the eastern coastline of NZ will generally receive lower than normal rainfall.

As always drill down deeper with your hyper-local, hourly, 10 day forecasts at WeatherWatch.co.nz – or download our alerting app – it’s NZ’s largest weather app with the most local data!.