Covid 19 coronavirus: Auckland weather forecast shows more sunshine as level 3 continues

People enjoy the beautiful weather at Kohi Beach on Saturday. Photo / Brett Phibbs

An "unfortunate" forecast is in store for Aucklanders being urged to stay at home - with the usual winter rain replaced with buckets of sunshine.

During the first weekend day of the latest Covid-19 level 3 lockdown, plenty of people headed to beaches and parks around the region to enjoy sunny weather and warm temperatures.

MetService forecaster Sonja Farmer said more of the same was in store over the coming days.

"A ridge is sitting over the country meaning some fine weather for Sunday and Monday, unfortunately this fine weekend run is just when people would love to be out and about."

But the city would have to get over a frigid start first, with just 2C forecast before dawn, well below today's overnight low of 5C and the average August low of 8.5C.

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Fine weather was forecast through the day with a high of 14C - more or less the same conditions are expected on Monday.

Similar fine weather was forecast across most of the country on Sunday, with chilly starts in places without cloud cover.

The coldest of the main centres overnight was expected to be Hamilton on -2C, and Taumarunui and Taupō at -3C.

The ridge of high pressure was expected to dominate the country to early Tuesday when an active front approached from the Tasman Sea.

High pressure continues dominating NZ's weather tomorrow. A weak front brings a bit of cloud to the South Island, which takes the edge off of the frosts, but is too weak to bring rain to anywhere except right on the coast. ^TA pic.twitter.com/Ug3AEoPGQy

— MetService (@MetService) August 15, 2020

The front should move east across New Zealand on Wednesday, bringing a period of heavy rain and strong northeasterlies to many places.

There was a low chance of a heavy rain warning for Northland, northern parts of Auckland including Great Barrier Island, and Coromandel Peninsula could see some heavy rain Wednesday, but moderate for Bay of Plenty.

Rain and severe gale northeasterlies could also strike the Marlborough Sounds including the Richmond Range, Nelson, Buller, Westland and northern Fiordland on Wednesday.