The new week kicks of with west to north-west winds returning, plenty of western showers and a nationwide cold front on Wednesday.

Let’s get into the forecast for Monday to begin with…

RAIN:
Rain and showers continue to spread in from the west on Monday, with some wet weather spilling over into the eastern North Island for a time. A couple of showers may also spread into Southland.

WIND:
West to north-west winds blow over the North Island with lighter westerly quarter winds for the South Island.

TEMPERATURES:
Airflows out of Aussie keep the North Island mild, especially in the north and east of the island. The South Island is about average on Monday, if not a couple degrees warmer than average in the east thanks to the westerly flow.

WEEK AHEAD
On Tuesday nor-westers crank up across the country with gale to severe gales possible around the upper half of the South Island and lower North Island. Rain sets in to the West Coast across the day reaching Westport later in the day. Heavy falls in south Westland with a cold front by Tuesday night. Apart from a couple showers in the west of the North Island, most of the north and east of NZ is dry on Tuesday.

But that cold front heads up NZ on Tuesday night and across Wednesday with a colder south-westerly flow. Showers on Wednesday will hug Southland, the West Coast and the North Island (with that cold front clearing the North Island on Wednesday afternoon).

Towards the end of the week high pressure is trying to return to NZ, but low pressure may still affect the forecast – we’ll have more details tomorrow and what may be happening later this week and going into the weekend.

And of course – get more forecast details than the two Government forecasters combined with the FREE hyper-local, hourly, 10 day forecasts at WeatherWatch.co.nz – or download our Free WeatherWatch App.