Spring is in full swing, having already delivered a smorgasbord of weather over the course of this week. After a fine and frosty finish to the working week, MetService is forecasting warm and wet westerlies for the weekend.

The cold southerly outbreak experienced over the last few days settled widespread low snow across Canterbury and Otago. Is this unusual for the start of the season? MetService meteorologist Tahlia Crabtree comments, “Spring snow isn’t uncommon, but after the warm winter we’ve had, this event definitely made an impact. We had reports of snow falling to 100m in parts of Canterbury.”

Many across the country felt the chill this morning thanks to the cold southerlies. Christchurch woke to a frosty -3°C, with similar temperatures around other southern areas. The upper North Island is expected to be even colder tomorrow morning, with minimums falling as low as 3°C across Northland and Auckland. The northern centres (Northland, Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga) see a return to warmer temperatures and some sunshine on Friday and Saturday.

Northwest winds will push-up temperatures for most of the country on Friday ahead of a front moving onto the South Island.

A few Severe Weather Watches and Warnings have been issued for the front on Friday. “Heavy rain is expected to affect western areas of the South Island from Friday afternoon, while eastern regions are likely to see gale northwesterlies in exposed places from Friday evening,” explains Crabtree.

The front is expected to track up the country over the weekend, spreading rain and blustery westerly winds across the South Island, and across western and lower parts of the North Island.