High pressure lies north of NZ today as a large storms spins well south of the country, hugging Antarctica but expanding up to just south of the South Island. This set-up keeps NZ in the spring-like westerly flow.

Let’s get into the forecast for Thursday to begin with…

RAIN:
Wet weather, mostly in the form of showers and patchy rain continues for the West Coast and maybe Southland. A few isolated showers for the western North Island otherwise the rest of NZ is mostly dry today.

WIND:
West to south-west winds continue over NZ today, tilting more northerly around Cook Strait.

TEMPERATURES:
Average temperatures today with some in the east perhaps a degree or two above normal thanks to the drier westerly flow.

DAYS AHEAD
On Friday some severe weather risks increase, such as heavy West Coast rain and strong to gale nor-westers through the upper South Island and very lower North Island/Cook Strait. For now any severe weather looks to be at the lower end of the scale on Friday, but following recent rough weather across the South Island it’s still worth monitoring.

By Saturday that western rain band moves into the North Island’s west and north and mostly falls apart to just showers with a cooler sou-west flow spreading up the South Island behind it – and a bit more more wet weather in Southland, the West Coast and even Otago.

On Sunday high pressure briefly rolls in with more settled weather over NZ and just a few isolated showers.

But Monday next week looks to kick off with another enormous Southern Ocean storm (well south of NZ) – but big enough to help bring another spring-surge of severe gales to the lower half of the South Island – while calm in northern parts of the country thanks to that high pressure zone which is still lingering from Sunday.

As always drill down deeper with your hyper-local, hourly, FREE 10 day forecasts from WeatherWatch.co.nz – or download the FREE WeatherWatch App.