High pressure starts to take a strong hold over the country today, yesterday’s fronts leave behind plenty of cloud in the east. A few light showers clear the eastern South Island but showers persist for much of the day about the eastern North Island.

Western regions will be sunnier, perhaps the West Coast may see some cloud along with Northland this morning, also expect a few areas of high cloud. Temperatures in the west will be warmer, the western / upper North Island sees highs in the mid to late twenties where as eastern regions are in the mid to late teens although Hawkes Bay and Gisborne may crack the early twenties.

Winds are light for most, south to southeasterly winds through Cook Strait and pushing into southern coastal Taranaki will be a bit fresh perhaps strong at times, easing overnight. Southerlies for the eastern North Island will ease from this afternoon.

Mainly settled tomorrow for most bar a few showers for the North Island, rain arrives in the far north later in the day spreading to most regions on Friday. Breaking to warm weather in the afternoon for eastern regions on Friday as a northerly airflow tends northwards, wet weather continues out west with quite unstable conditions for the upper NI.

Rain for many western regions NYE with a southerly quarter change in the east, settling down on NYD.

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Maps most relevant today are…

• Live Rain Radar
• Animated Temperature Maps
• RuralWeather: Localised Cloud, UV & Temperature Data & Graphs

See your local hourly & 10 day forecast at WeatherWatch.co.nz – or for more details and event planning visit RuralWeather.co.nz for the most detailed and hyper-local forecasts in NZ.

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🥳#NewYearsEve: A cold front moves up #NZ, some places may be a bit cooler behind the front. #Queenstown's max temperature this Sunday is +13c, the low is +7c. #Napier on the other hand has +28 & and low of +19c.

🥱#NewYearsDay: High pressure, drier weather, across #NZ. pic.twitter.com/nZwdOzuGdl

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) December 26, 2023