Here’s what is making the weather headlines today….

COLD SW BUT IT WILL CLEAR

A bit cold today, some will notice this a fair amount compared to how temperatures were yesterday. Christchurch for example reached 18 degrees yesterday but will only reach 11 or 12 today. Kaikoura hit 17 but will only reach 10 or 11 degrees today.

Most regions see showers today but a large part of the West Coast is sunny, showers for Buller clear this morning. Showers push into Hawkes Bay then Gisborne from late morning as southerlies strengthen, showers may be heavy.

Showers for the upper North Island could be heavy with thunder and perhaps hail then easing late afternoon, clearing this evening.

There will be some snow to 800m for the Central Plateau, 700m this morning for Canterbury. About Southland and Otago snow may fall to 400m this morning before clearing away.

Overnight showers will have cleared for most but still remain for the east coast of the North Island, perhaps a few push into western areas north of Auckland coming in off the Tasman Sea.

Expect frosty conditions overnight for many especially the South Island. Frosty again overnight Tuesday / Wednesday morning with frosts more widespread for the North Island and not as cold further south.

Any watches and warnings from Metservice can be seen here.

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SETTLED ON TUESDAY

Settled on Tuesday thanks to high pressure, not really a news day as such but some settled weather in amongst the chaos is always nice. Most will be sunny but there will be some cloud also as can be seen in the cloud cover map below.

There will be a few showers for the eastern North Island that clear from the south otherwise it is mainly dry elsewhere.

MAINLY SETTLED WEEK AFTER TODAY

Yes today is showery with southwesterlies. But the rest of this week is looking relatively settled thanks to high pressure and this shows in the precipitation percentage of normal map below with drier weather expected overall for the next seven days.

Next weekend a few fronts start to head in from the south and this could turn the settled weather on its head. It is a while away so nothing is set in stone yet and the details are yet to be worked out but this will be the period of time looking forward when we can expect some unsettled weather next.

The precipitation percentage of normal map below runs through to Monday 28th August. Blue coloring means that part of the country is likely to see more rainfall than would normally be expected at this time of year, red means less rainfall is expected and white is an average amount of rainfall. The more intense either red or blue then either scenario is more true.