A large high is coming towards New Zealand and will take about a week to cross our part of the world – it’s likey to bring calmer, cooler, drier and sunnier weather to many areas – but the centre of the high may not cross NZ until later next week – meaning a few showers are still in the picture due to the cooler south west flow at the beginning of the high.

However, unlike this current week, next week does look a lot quieter for New Zealand. We see no aggressive lows, no thunderstorms or hail and no overly wet weather for any region.

Will it be sunny and dry for 5 days?
Not for everyone – as from Monday to Wednesday we will still see the south to south west wind flow (which will arrive this Friday and Saturday in most places, flushing away the warmer than average temperatures we’ve had this past week).

This south west wind flow tends to blow in clouds and a few lighter showers into our coastal areas…if the winds shift from SW to SSW it can move showers/cloud into new areas, and at the same time clear the skies for others.  This is due to New Zealand’s mountains and ranges.

Inland areas are likely to be driest and sunniest next week – again, due to the mountains and ranges keeping most showers or cloudy periods around the coastal areas.

Latest models place this high crossing NZ next Thursday to Saturday with rain potentially returning to the West Coast as early as next Friday.

But this is all very early days – we just wanted to give you a more positive forecast to look forward to, with so many people asking us “When is this wet weather going to stop?!” – we hope this partially answers that question for you!

We’ll update this graphic and forecast as we head into the weekend.