A COLD START

With high pressure moving in and clear skies it’s been a cold start, especially for inland areas.

Parts of the inner South Island would have started out around 2 or 3 degrees, perhaps the outside chance of a light frost for some.

The Central Plateau hasn’t missed out with a low of 2 or 3 degrees also.

SETTLED COUPLE OF DAYS THEN ANOTHER ROUND MOVES IN

As high pressure mentioned above moves in it will bring increasingly settled weather today, a few extremities still have a shower or two to clear like coastal parts of the eastern North Island and coastal Southland but most are looking good.

Tomorrow the high sits right over us so a settled day is on the way again, there may be some cloud in the west though, mainly the West Coast. Also coastal Otago has some cloud.

Thursday sees an increasing northerly airflow, very strong winds develop along the West Coast, also about the upper South Island / lower North Island later in the day with gales. Rain moves into the West Coast with heavy falls and thunderstorms, especially overnight into Friday. The lower South Island picks up on rain late Thursday. Finally the western North Island has the odd shower, turning to rain in the west overnight Taranaki southwards.

Friday is looking unsettled still then high pressure moves in.

As we approach Thursday / Friday keep an eye on this page here to see if any rain and wind watches start coming out from Metservice.

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T/STORMS CANTERBURY ON FRIDAY?

Yes it is a possibility, in fact it may start out about North Otago early afternoon, reaching North Canterbury in the evening on a southerly change.

The surface southerly helps trigger any potential storms then we have some cold upper air moving in also, surface temperatures and moisture helps to overcome a stable atmosphere.

The risk is not high at this stage, upper air is not overly cold and we are a few days out yet but something to keep an eye on.

In the below image which is 7:00pm on Friday you can see the southerly pushing into Canterbury lying about Mid Canterbury through to Banks Peninsula then continuing offshore.