The year's first dusting of snow could eventuate this week, with temperatures around Hawke's Bay set to plunge from tomorrow. Although today will remain warm and sunny, with temperatures reaching 23 degrees, a southwesterly change will bring rain in the evening - before daytime temperatures experience a 10 degree drop on Wednesday.
"There's a good front moving over the country today (Tuesday), and behind that there's going to be some strong southerlies and it is going to bring some quite cold air over Hawke's Bay and pretty much all of the country", MetService meteorologist Tom Bell said.
"That's going to mean some definitely colder temperatures in Hawke's Bay and we're going to see some snow to about 700m about the ranges and high hills. The southerlies are going to be quite strong, so it's going to be quite wet and cold.
"Those colder temperatures will continue through the week, probably starting to warm up again about Friday.
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Advertise with NZME."Today's temperature will remain quite mild and then things will drop quite rapidly and continue to be colder through Wednesday and Thursday. At the moment there is still a slight northwest flow and then when that southerly comes through that's going to be when the temperatures suddenly drop because its bringing through much colder air from down south."
This week's colder weather follows a warm dry period for most of Hawke's Bay. MetService records show daytime temperatures in Napier have only dropped below 20 degrees twice in the past 30 days.
However, things are set to get much colder much sooner for the far south of the region.
MetService forecasts for Dannevirke today shows heavy rain can be expected to last all day with a top temperature of just 15 degrees.
The southerly change will see temperatures in Dannevirke fall to just nine degrees tomorrow.
