Southerly winds bring chilly showers, lower temperatures across New Zealand

Friday, 5 April 2019

Residents of Wellington get an early taste of winter, with gale southerlies, afternoon rain and a high of just 14 degrees Celsius.

Christchurch, Wellington and some easterly areas are getting an early taste of winter as southerly winds bring chilly showers during the next few days.

While summer lingered in many areas during the country's second-equal warmest March on record, the first week of April is a reminder the days are getting colder and shorter.

As well as daylight saving ending on Sunday, MetService has issued a road snow warning. On Friday morning snow flurries were possible about the summit of Porters Pass, although little if any of it should settle, MetService said.

On Friday, snow could fall to 900 metres in the Kaikōura ranges and Southern Alps, and to 1400m in the North Island.

The set-up of weather features across the country was producing winds from the southeast, MetService meteorologist Tui McInnes said.

The result would be cloudy and wet weather with cooler temperatures for the eastern coasts of both islands.

'Easterly winds produce an on-shore flow of weather that gets trapped by our inland mountain ranges, this in turn causes cloudy skies and means plenty of that moisture falls out of the sky as rain,' McInnes said.

Wellington is expected to have highs of just 13 degrees Celsius on Friday and 14C on Saturday, with rain or showers and strong or gale southerlies.

Similarly, Christchurch is only expected to get to 13C both days, with a chance of showers. Strong southerlies are forecast to ease on Friday and to be a breeze on Saturday. Nights will be chilly with expected lows of 5C and 4C.

Nights are expected to be even cooler further south, with Alexandra forecast to get to zero overnight Friday, and Invercargill getting to 1C during the next two nights.

Southerlies or southeasterlies do reach Northland, with Whangarei expecting overnight lows of 11C or 12C over the next few days, although daytime highs will still make it to around 20C.

Auckland is similar, with a high of 21C expected on Friday, with southerlies and just a chance of morning showers in the west. Overnight temperatures are expected to drop to a pleasant 13C, then Saturday could have isolated showers and a high of 20C.

The West Coast, which took a pounding from torrential downpours early last week, is among the nicer places to be in the next few days. The forecast for Greymouth shows a chance of a morning shower on Friday, then sunny weather through the weekend and into Monday. Daytime highs are expected to rise from 15C on Friday to 19C by Monday. Southeasterlies are likely to be gusty on Friday but winds are forecast to be light on the following three days.