The weather forecast for the regions most impacted by this morning’s destructive earthquake is unfortunately not a good one.

Gales and the potential for heavy downpours are moving in – with the very areas most impacted by the earthquake and tsunami now in the firing line for roughest weather.

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Here are the 10 day forecasts, including % of rain, for the regions directly around the centre of the quake:

• Culverden
• Hanmer Springs
• Kaikoura
• Cheviot
• Wellington
• Christchurch

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RAIN:

Heavy tonight on the West Coast/Nelson area with spillover into North Canterbury. While good for farmers and growers some of the downpours could be briefly heavy.

Here’s the 4am rain map for Tuesday showing the hit and miss nature of the rain.

Wellington is exposed to very heavy downpours on Tuesday morning with the risk of localised flooding.

WIND:
Winds may well be the bigger issue, at least for North Canterbury/Kaikoura area. Nor’westers are traditionally a bit wild at times in these areas, made worse by a large low in the Tasman Sea moving in.

MetService is warning of winds up to 140km/h in the ranges – and Kaikoura to Hanmer Springs are basically on the edge of this belt of hurricane force winds overnight tonight/Tuesday AM.

However, it’s important to note the worst of these winds will likely be on exposed hills and ranges – and hopefully less damaging gusts elsewhere.

With so many powercuts already across both islands this may cause further cuts – or delays in restoring power.

Areas in red/purple are the strongest winds (the 140km/h gusts will be in the areas of purple). This is overnight tonight – and areas in blue are much calmer.

A close up of 10pm tonight for the epicentre of this morning’s earthquake shows hurricane force NW winds in the mountains, gales to the sea, and calm spells further south/central for Canterbury.

– Maps / Weathermap.co.nz

– WeatherWatch.co.nz