Another cold front was expected to affect the South Island on Wednesday and the lower North Island on Thursday, bringing more showers or rain, mainly to the west.
Northwest winds ahead of the front were also expected to lead to a short upward spike in temperatures for eastern coasts.
“The Christchurch daytime high forecast graphs will look a lot like a wave this week with the forecast daytime high of 22C on Wednesday dropping down to the mid-teens again on Thursday,” Clark said.
Later, on Friday, another ridge of high pressure brings settled weather once more, though a low to the north brought the possibility of rain to Northland.
As for the long weekend, MetService wasn’t yet ready to offer a clear forecast, with models still undecided on whether the late-week ridge, or low pressure in the north, would win out as the dominant driver.
“These systems interacting in the exact way that they do... there’s some complexity to that,” MetService meteorologist Andrew James said.
“It’s a case of keeping up to date with the forecasts, and we’ll have a much better idea in the next couple of days.”
