Here’s what is making the weather headlines today.

THUNDERSTORMS WEST COAST

A thunderstorm risk is present for the West Coast of the South Island today. For more on the chart below please visit this page here.

SOUTHWESTERLIES STILL DUE ON FRIDAY

Temperatures will cool down on Friday thanks to a southwesterly airflow. Naturally the North Island will be a bit warmer than further south though, about the Central Plateau which is included in the “Western North Island” bracket below one can expect a high of 16. Here are the expected high’s around New Zealand for Friday.

Southland and Otago 11-14

West Coast 14-18

Canterbury 15-17

Marlborough and Nelson 19-20

Wellington 18-20

Eastern North Island 21-23

Western North Island 16-21

Northland, Auckland, Waikato and Bay Of Plenty 20-23

#NewZealand is stuck between a rock and a hard place as2⃣enormous High pressure zones 'book-end' us.

The high south of Aussie will stretch about 7000km west to east on Friday – nearly twice as wide as #Australia is!

The Aussie high is also bringing a S to SW change into NZ. pic.twitter.com/6Kxp5zEvg9

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) April 20, 2022

RAIN OUTLOOK

The image below shows the rain outlook through to Thursday 28th April. Colours shaded in red show rainfall that is expected to be less than normal for this time of year meanwhile blue shows areas with wetter than normal weather coming up.

Basically the West Coast and far south of the South Island is looking wetter than normal, for Southland at least this is good news. Elsewhere is looking average to drier than normal.