Cold weather in the south, rain in the west, very humid in the north – that sums up the weather over the past few days, but as Friday progresses a large, settling, high will move in from the Tasman Sea.

The weekend for most of New Zealand looks mostly sunny, settled and dry. 

WeatherWatch.co.nz says daytime highs should be in the low to mid 20s for much of the country but overnight lows will be cooler than the previous couple of weeks.

The high is going to stop any drought breaking rain reaching North Island for at least seven days and no rain is predicted for Auckland either – where conditions are also fairly dry.

However a window of opportunity may form in the Tasman Sea around Wednesday as the high begins to depart the North Island.   It’s possible a low may form in the upper Tasman Sea mid week but at this stage WeatherWatch has low confidence of this happening.