As expected yesterday the deep low in the western Tasman Sea actually back tracked and moved in towards Australia.  This morning places like Melbourne are being blasted by gale force southerlies with the centre of the low hundreds of kilometres to the east of the city.

Today the low will slide northwards for a time, towards Sydney, but as the day progresses it will finally stop hugging the Australian coast and head out north eastwards into the Tasman Sea.

As you can see in the satellite map on the right of this page there is now one very large band of frontal cloud off New Zealand’s west coast.  While that cloud is moving closer to us the heavy rain is still around 24 hours away for most populated places due to the blocking action of the large high just east of NZ.

So North Island regions can today expect overcast conditions with northerlies very slowly creeping up.  A few drizzle patches or light showers are possible in western regions such as Taranaki and Auckland also across Northland, which should be the first region to receive the heavy rain tomorrow.

Eastern regions of the North Island will be hot today with some inland places possibly reaching 30 degrees fanned by that hot nor’wester.  As of 9am it was already 23 degrees in Hastings.

In the South Island the West Coast will continue to receive heavy rain but eastern areas will stay warm and dry with that high cloud increasing.  Temperatures again being pushed into the mid to upper 20s.

The Weather Watch Centre still expects the heaviest rain and strongest winds to arrive Monday in the afternoon and evening with patchy showers or drizzle expected to increase this afternoon and evening across northern and western facing regions.