Sunny days will bow to winter

Southerly swells spilled into Hawke Bay, giving a wet start for the pictured surfer at Te Awanga today. PHOTO / Paul Taylor

Waves up to 4m are hitting Napier and Hastings beaches today as a strong southeasterly swell spills into Hawke Bay, drawing an equal response from wet suited surfies.

MetService meteorologist Tom Adams said the aqua-treat would be short lived and Monday and Tuesday would be better spent catching up on laundry ahead of more wet weather forecast to return later this week.

Fine weather is forecast Monday and Tuesday with winds shifting to provider drier and warmer winds.

"Those winds from the northwest are coming overland, so are relatively dry," he said.

Monday's high will be 13 C and Tuesday 16 C.

The first hint of wet skies will be high cloud on Tuesday as a front moves onto the country.

"By the time you get to Wednesday the front moving up the country develops a low on it, which is going to bring some easterly towards the end of the week," he said.

"So on Wednesday we see rain start to develop with a bit of a southerly, then those easterlies mean that rain is just going to stick around for quite a few days."

He said the easterlies were unlikely to bring a large swell directly into Hawke Bay. Large usually swells came with wind travelling in the same direction for a long time, which did not happen often in New Zealand because the prevailing wind direction was from the west. An exception to the rule was if easterly winds were "incredibly strong", an unlikely occurrence later this week because the low descending onto New Zealand was expected to weaken.

The wet weather should be clearing by the weekend, he said.

Evening temperatures will remain nippy until the easterlies arrive on Wednesday: early Tuesday morning is forecast to be 2 C in Hastings and 4 C in Napier.