The last good weekend of winter

The last good weekend of winter

There are just two weekends left this winter, and this looks like the one to head outdoors. The last few days have seen blue skies and calm conditions for much of the country – albeit with some areas of fog, especially on the east coast of the South Island. These are the calling cards of high pressure and the good news is that generally settled conditions continue into the weekend.

The ridge of high pressure that has dominated New Zealand weather this week starts to slip away as a front tries to move in from the west, but calm conditions hold on with the exception of the West Coast of the South Island and a few light showers for Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne and eastern parts of north Auckland and Northland. There will be slightly more cloud around than earlier this week, with the Bay of Plenty looking like the most likely place to stay cloud-free all weekend.

This map shows the probability of more than 2mm of rain this weekend, calculated through a comparison of 50 different weather models. The East Coast of the North Island will continue to see a few millimetres in an easterly wind flow, and the West Coast of the South Island starts to see rain as a front stalls out to the west. Rainfall totals are not large anywhere, but for people looking to make the most of the spring-like conditions there are plenty of spots to choose from.

On Monday a front from the Tasman Sea moves over the country, bringing a spell of rain across the North Island followed by westerly winds and warm, wet unsettled conditions from midweek onwards.

Keep up to date with the latest forecasts and any watches/warnings at metservice.com or on mobile devices at m.metservice.com. You can also follow our updates on MetService TV, at MetService New Zealand on Facebook, @metservice and @MetServiceWARN on Twitter and atblog.metservice.com

ENDS

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