A front moving onto the lower South Island this morning heralds the arrival of some very unsettled weather, the front pushes northwards to reach central parts of the country overnight then moves over the North Island tomorrow.

A trough line then fires into the lower South Island from this evening, moving all the way north to the North Island later on Tuesday overnight into Wednesday.

So first, the front…

Well there is actually a series of fronts but they are fairly close together so we’ll amalgamate these and call them the one singular front. This front has heavy rain and thunderstorms preceding it along the West Coast today, northerly winds strengthen for the upper South Island into this afternoon and evening, gales will likely develop through Cook Strait. As the front clears to the north winds tend northwest in behind and may be strong for the likes of Canterbury. Later in the night as the front reaches Taranaki there could be a heavy fall with some thunder.

Second, the trough…..

The trough and a secondary cold front hits the lower South Island from this evening, this brings heavy rain to Southland then Otago with southerly winds strengthening and gales likely to develop for coastal areas. Overnight thunderstorms move into South Westland again then North Westland tomorrow morning as a cold pool of upper air moves over. This cold pool of air could bring thunder to Taranaki Tuesday evening then perhaps parts of the upper North Island overnight into Wednesday morning before easing.

Tuesday sees strong to gale southwesterly winds move into Canterbury first thing in the morning with rain, it may be heavy for a time then eases from afternoon.

Metservice has various weather warnings out, wind and rain warnings can be seen here. Thunderstorm watches / warnings can be seen here.

You can also check out our website ruralweather.co.nz, search your location and you can dial in when rain is due, how much and how strong winds may be.

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This map below shows where most of our rainfall will be through to Sunday 26th March. As you can see the West Coast and far south gets the brunt of it, it’s not to say there might not be a few heavy falls elsewhere like Canterbury for example or Taranaki but those falls will likely not last as long and be as intense.