UPDATED Friday –— Labour Weekend is pretty much here and with so many people enjoying three days off work we’re getting inundated with questions about how the weather will shape up.

As we say just about every single year – we usually have two settled days and one unsettled one for most regions, as is the nature of spring.

Here’s the latest…

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SATURDAY:
High pressure is incoming!

Rain and/or shower activity in the North Island looks confined to around Gisborne or East Cape and maybe northern Hawke’s bay on Saturday – and will ease as the day wears on. We also can’t rule out a few small and light showers around eastern Coromandel Peninsula or western Bay of Plenty caught up in the same air flow affecting Gisborne. 

Saturday will be a bit cooler nationwide in the morning due to the southerly change that came in late Friday or overnight and into Saturday morning. There may even be a very light frost through some sheltered inland parts of the South Island but overnight lows (tonight) aren’t expected to drop below 0 degrees.

In the South Island it’s looking dry.

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SUNDAY:
High pressure dominates the entire North Island. Apart from cloudy areas, the day is calm and settled and dry and milder than Saturday was with sunnier weather developing in the east.

In the South Island it’s a fairly dry and settled day too with northerly quarter winds developing in most regions and dry in the east. On the West Coast rain from Fiordland will slowly head northwards into South Westland – but Sunday may well stay dry with rain not arriving until late, or even at night for some in the north west of the South Island.

High cloud will also spread over southern and eastern parts of the South Island.

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LABOUR DAY MONDAY
A low from the Tasman Sea moves in with plenty of cloud across the country and rain or showers for northern and western regions of both islands. (The rain band may break up a bit into showers as it moves eastwards over our mountains and ranges). Sunniest weather will be in the eastern North Island, which were cloudiest to begin with this long weekend (so it all evens out!).

The biggest change in this update is that the rain band – or showers – for the nation may not arrive until later in the day. It’s one to watch as computer model updates may shift the arrival time of this wetter weather by + or – six hours. 

At this stage the North Island looks dry on Monday with rain on the West Coast.

– Maps / Weathermap.co.nz – see more by going to our MAPS tab

– WeatherWatch.co.nz