A polar blast heading up from the deep south will make a mockery of the misnamed "winterless north" as night temperatures plummet to an icy overnight 3C this week.
Expect frost, hail and ice-cold southerlies.
The daytime high in the region today is expected to sit around 13C and drop to 11C tomorrow as the southerly winds wreaking havoc further south drive their way northward.
Heavy rain and a thunderstorm watch eased off overnight, but off-and-on showers - and possibly light hail - are expected to sting Northland until Friday.
Those unfriendly southerlies will become gusty in the next couple of days but reduce on Friday.
Northland can expect a drier weekend but any sunshine will be brittle, and temperatures will stay low.
A high pressure system will begin to build up by Sunday - with temperatures "up" to 14C, the MetService reports.
Northland's coldest temperature recorded this winter was early in the morning on June 24 when the gauge at Whangarei Airport dipped to 2.5C briefly.
The last time that 2.5C was recorded at the airport was the year before, during an unusually early frost in May.