A hint of golden days ahead

This week's warm weather is expected to continue into the weekend. Photo / Richard Robinson

Spring is inching closer and closer, as these early-blooming daffodils show. The warmer weather this week is expected to continue into the weekend, though while temperatures will stay similar, some cloud will move in on Saturday and Sunday.

The change in conditions this week coincided with a meteorological milestone - Tuesday was the last day of Solar Winter.

That's the three months with the least amount of sunlight through the year, which starts six weeks before the shortest day and ends six weeks after.

WeatherWatch analyst Philip Duncan said most areas were now getting more than half an hour of extra sunlight during the day than six weeks ago.

Winter ends either on August 31, meteorologically speaking, or September 21 if you go by the spring equinox.