The working week ahead isn’t terribly busy weather-wise but this Friday and weekend sees another large low pressure system moving in.

There were heavy frosts in the South Island this morning with temperatures below -5 even an hour after sunrise in some areas.

In fact even as of 11am it was still fairly cold and below zero through Central Otago and parts of Northern Southland:
Click for live observations map

Frosts may not be so widespread in the South Island on Tuesday thanks to some rain on the West Coast spilling over into the east – or extra cloud cover. However the North Island may be a bit colder with more frosts inland than they had on Monday. Heavier frosts may return to the South Island by Wednesday though.

Coastal showers will affect both islands this week with neither high or low pressure dominating, although perhaps slightly more high pressure will win out overall this week across New Zealand.

By Friday the winds tilt more nor’west ahead of a large low moving in from the southern Tasman Sea.

As we saw last week large lows don’t immediately equal stormier weather – it just means the weather affects us for longer. Once again we’ll see some isolated pockets of rough weather, but larger areas of just general winter weather (ie, a bit of wind and rain, then showers) looks to be the main course. 

The incoming weekend sees this large area of low pressure cross New Zealand. Again our mountains and ranges will mean the weather will vary from region to region, even vary within regions, so we’ll need a couple more days to fine tune the timing of the rain and wind.

Either way more rain is coming this Friday or weekend, for a country that is increasingly getting tired of the rain.

– Image / Current wind and rain map for this Saturday across New Zealand and Australia / Weathermap

– WeatherWatch.co.nz