Wairarapa warms up as holidays start
The best place to be for fine weather for the start of the school holidays this week is the Wairarapa, with the wider Wellington region a mixed bag.
MetService meteorologist Stephen Glassey said Wairarapa, along with the Hutt, would likely reach 20 degrees Celsius over the next couple of days.
Wellington City would remain fine for a couple of days after a sunny but crisp weekend, but a low-pressure system was forecast to move over the North Island late tomorrow evening and into Wednesday, likely to bring rain to most of the island.
The Wellington wind would turn southerly on Wednesday, despite a high of 19C, bringing a chill and some rain to the city.
But Thursday would be dry, with a high of 18, winds turning northerly that afternoon.
Despite the region’s sunny outlook, the coldest point this weekend was reached by Masterton, which hit a low of 1.1C.
Although the weather was cooling down, the system moving down the country this week was coming from the north Tasman, bringing more humid air despite lowered temperatures.
‘‘It’s not your typical outbreak you’d see during winter,’’ Glassey said. ‘‘We haven’t had any of those yet.’’
There had been frosts in other parts of the country, showing true Autumn weather was on its way, and temperatures had been dropping noticeably in many areas.
Christchurch experienced its coldest morning of the year so far this weekend, dropping to 1.9C.
Further north, Northland, Auckland and possibly Coromandel are likely to see heavy rains and possible thunderstorms.