A southerly is racing up New Zealand with the upper North Island dealing with a gale westerly ahead of it.

Winds will build today with a ramping up of peak winds later this afternoon/early evening, before winds ease back overnight in northern NZ.

Gusts will likely be between 100 and 130km/h in some exposed areas around exposed parts of Auckland, Great Barrier Island, Northland and Coromandel Peninsula. However the winds are going to be spread out over a greater distance, which does reduce some peak gusts.

Some of the strongest gusts may be in squally showers.

A few trees are likely to come down and these winds are getting into power outage territory – so be prepared for that, and if working outdoors be prepared for sudden wind gusts (so avoid being near trees).

Meanwhile, in the South Island a colder change brings snow into the mountains, a temperature drop and more heavy rain to the deep south.

The rain will actually be a net positive for the Southland and Otago regions, boosting soil moisture levels (which have been below normal lately) and giving a nice big dusting of snow to the ski fields.

As WeatherWatch.co.nz forecast exclusively last month, more rain relief is also coming to Auckland’s water storage dams.

While today does lean average to colder than average (and tonight is colder than average for many regions), the cold won’t linger – with Thursday already looking milder in the South Island and upper North Island.

It's going to be a windy day in the upper North Island today, especially #Northland, #Auckland, #CoromandelPen, #WesternBOP.

Today's wind event visually looks similar to the 2018 April storm that slammed Auckland – but there are some noticeable differences which reduces risks. pic.twitter.com/IIRXIISA0B

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) July 7, 2020

Did you know…#Weather maps we use are created every single day exclusively for https://t.co/Pm2OWgtJRf to use in #NZ, by a team of highly qualified meteorologists?

Also, that all our #data is high resolution? It's all thanks to @IBM.

'It's time to rethink weather in NZ' pic.twitter.com/CU4HZPqPNI

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) July 7, 2020

Drill down further with your local wind charts, graphs and hourly wind, temperature, rain, air pressure, dew point, cloud cover data and more: www.RuralWeather.co.nz