A gigantic area of high pressure south of Australia will influence NZ’s weather for at least the next week or two as it slowly tries to drift towards us.

In the meantime it will help usher in a windy and colder/cooler south to south-westerly flow across the nation, moving up the South Island on Wednesday and falling apart over the North Island by Thursday.

Behind it is cooler, windier, weather with showers about – but a mostly dry forecast starts to develop as that high near Australia remains where it is…and then next week looks to drift in towards NZ.

At this time of year even high pressure can bring showers, and remember the centre of the high is a long way from NZ, we’re on the outer edges of it for at least 7 days before it moves closer.

Don’t forget our monthly ClimateWatch update is out on Wednesday afternoon, May 1st, taking a look at the likely rain and temperature trends as we go into May.

El Nino may be over but the weather is a bigger beast and we’re not seeing an immediate change yet to the pattern around New Zealand and large parts of Australia.