Hello sunshine! Good weather for country after icy few days

Fine weather will be a welcome ray of sunshine for thousands of North Islanders, still without power after wild weather lashed the country this week.

MetService is predicting sun for most of the country this weekend with a few frosts and showers around the place.

The wintry blast has started pulling away to the east, however temperatures will still remain in the low teens for North Islanders, while highs in the South Island "won't crack double digits" according to MetService meteorologist Sarah Sparks.

Just over 3000 households and businesses in the lower and eastern North Island are still without power.

The outage followed a week of freezing temperatures, heavy snowfall, road closures and rain for most of the country. In Rotorua residents were calling their snowfall a once in a decade event, while Aucklanders noticed particularly low temperatures.

The towns worst affected by outages are Taihape, where 800 properties are without electricity and Whanganui where nearly 500 don't have power.

A Powerco spokeswoman said helicopters couldn't be sent up last night to reach remote areas because of bad weather.

She's hoping they'll be able to go up today.

Eastland Group crews headed out first thing this morning to continue repairing multiple faults around the Wairoa area, where 539 homes have been without power since yesterday.

Trees have fallen on to powerlines and a number of power poles are down in the area, but several roads closures are making access difficult for Eastland Group.

Residents have been advised to stay safe and treat all lines as live.

The Desert Rd is the only highway route across the Central Plateau which hasn't yet opened following this week's bitterly cold weather.

At one point, 500 people were trapped by the weather, staying at Chateau Tongariro Hotel and the Skotel Alpine Resort.

A spokesman for the Chateau said many guests got on their way after 2pm yesterday, but the hotel is expecting a very busy day today.

North Island motorists are being warned to drive carefully because of ice and snow on the roads.

The NZ Transport Agency is urging people to be cautious on highways between the Central Plateau and Whanganui, Hunterville and Taumarunui.

State highways north and south of Napier are also affected by the same conditions.

State Highway 56 at Opiki is still closed due to flooding.

NZTA has also warned drivers to take care on the icy roads in the South Island. Details of road warnings can be found here.

The good weather was expected to continue tomorrow for the top of the country.

Those down south are not so lucky, with a front expected to make its way up the South Island tomorrow, bringing rain and some heavy falls mainly for the west.