Time to flip out winter gear as cold blasts loom

Chilly weather is heralding winter’s approach, with frost and snow likely for the country’s south next week.

Meteorologists said the cooler air coming from the South Pole would be widely felt, with temperatures plunging between 5 and 10 degrees.

Niwa meteorologist Ben Noll said a cold blast early next week would be followed by another, more aggressive one, at the end of the week.

“In the South Island . . . there may be some frost and some snow in the higher elevations.

“In the North Island, no snow just yet, but you are certainly going to want to bundle up.”

Noll said it might be time to flip the summer wardrobe of T-shirts and jandals and pull out the winter gear.

The temperatures, which could dip below zero in the Central Plateau and areas in the south prone to chillier weather, would be felt more acutely after the recent mild days.

The meteorologist said the warmth of late was one positive of the recent flurry of storms. “They brought a lot of rain, but they come from the north and brought with them more tropical warmer air.”

Noll said winter was nearing, but some would be happy to hear milder weather would return mid-May — “and it does look relatively dry”.

The sun is set to give way to heavy cloud and rain by the end of the week, making the reprieve after Cyclone Cook short-lived.

MetService meteorologist April Clarke said the weather would turn wet today or tomorrow, particularly at the country’s southwestern end.

“On Thursday, most of the country remains sunny apart from areas of morning cloud or fog,” she said. “However, places west of the alps deteriorate into rain.”

Areas worst hit by the torrential rain in recent weeks will not escape either; the MetService predicts heavy rain in the northeast later in the week.

“There is then a moderate risk that rainfall ... will reach warning amounts in the north of Westland, Buller, Nelson, the north of Marlborough and over the North Island from Taranaki across to the Bay of Plenty northwards.”