A low pressure zone is moving in from the Tasman Sea today, tonight and Friday and will weaken as it does so – but means some rain and showers for parts of the country.

Because the low is weak there are large areas of dry too.

High pressure moves in behind it all.

RAIN
Rain and showers are broken up for Thursday but heaviest falls look to be around the north-west corner of the South Island, Takaka and Tasman for example. Some wet weather should spill over into Marlborough, and the northern halves of both Canterbury and West Coast. In the North Island showers and patchy rain with low rainfall totals affects the north and west of the island. The rest of NZ is mostly dry, but a few showers are possible.

WIND:
A colder south to south-west flow comes into the lower South Island while a milder nor-west flow continues over the North Island. Both of these airflows are merging clockwise into that low pressure zone just west of Farewell Spit

TEMPERATURES
Temperatures remain milder than usual for a number of regions but colder air comes back into the southern half of the South Island and that brings back single digit maximum temperatures inland and frost risks increase again over the south of NZ tonight and into Friday morning.

WEEKEND AHEAD
On Friday this very weak low falls apart over the North Island – this means there’s a lot of cloud and a moderate to high risk of wet weather – but rainfall totals for most won’t be huge. In fact, over the next 7 days most of NZ leans drier than usual for this time of year. That new high pressure zone from the Tasman Sea moves in this weekend bringing the mostly dry weather.

On Sunday milder westerlies pick up steam ahead of a cooler change on Monday with sou-westers. But this next high pressure belt is, once again, huge in size. The winter of big air pressure systems continues.

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