Spring brings much-needed sunshine

It may be a few days late, but spring has brought with it some much-needed sunshine to most of New Zealand.

And it looks like the warm fine weather is here to stay until at least Sunday.

MetService duty forecaster Larissa Marintchenko said this week's forecast was a vast improvement on last week's temperature when there was a cold southerly lurking about.

The central and northern parts of the North Island, including Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga, can expect temperatures between 17C and 19C, with areas on the east coast such as Gisborne, Napier and the Wairarapa lucky to be basking in temperatures of up to 20C.

In the South Island, Marlborough would also hit the low 20Cs.

The weather would remain nice and sunny until Sunday when some showers were expected in most of the main centres.

"I would say the weather is going to be fine like this pretty much for the whole country," Marintchenko said.

Wellington would be a few degrees colder with temperatures expected between 14C and 15C tomorrow due to some strong northerly winds rising up to 17C by the weekend.

The only exception to the nicer weather was Westland and Fiordland where the showers and rain could arrive on Thursday.

Wednesday's Forecast:

Northland

Showers, clearing this evening. Mainly fine tomorrow.

Auckland to northern Taranaki, including Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and the central high country
Fine

Gisborne, Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa
Cloudy with isolated showers, clearing tomorrow morning and becoming fine.

Southern Taranaki to Wellington
Cloudy Periods

Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury
Mainly fine, apart from the odd shower about the ranges of Nelson and Marlborough this afternoon

Otago and Southland
Isolated showers clearing this afternoon and becoming fine

Source: MetService