Weather Watch: Promising days ahead

Clear skies for a pleasant sun-soaked Christmas. Photo / Thinkstock

Santa Claus is coming to town - and the weather is looking fantastic for his long ride down from the North Pole.

The current temperature at the North Pole is -17 degrees with a "Feels Like" temperature of -28 (now you know why Santa's a big bloke with a thick red jacket).

Winds are strong from the north west.

We are all prepared for Santa's arrival. Check out this fantastic page - it's the Live Santa Tracker. The radar has been switched on and from what we've heard at Air Traffic Control, Santa and his reindeer should start to appear in the very north of the radar from 2pm on Christmas Eve, with updates every hour until late at night. (By law we have to switch it off before midnight!).

Children have already started to send Santa messages for his trip (and for what he could perhaps deliver them for Christmas).

I've taken a look at the weather maps for Santa and this year he is in luck. Santa travels along the International Date Line from the North Pole to New Zealand on Christmas Eve. Incredibly the weather maps, provided by ECMWF, show large highs for much of his trip - meaning this year Santa will almost certainly be on time.

The forecast for Christmas Day across New Zealand still looks fairly good too - with sunny spells likely in the north and east, but a few lingering showers and brisk south westerlies for those in the west.

Here are my main centre forecasts for Christmas Day and Boxing Day:

Auckland: Cloudy periods, brisk sou'westers easing. Conditions hopefully improving as the day progresses. Boxing Day looks great.

Hamilton: Sunny and cloudy periods, brisk sou'westers easing. Boxing Day looks sunny.

Tauranga: Mostly sunny with warm westerlies. Boxing Day looks sunny and hot with sea breezes.

Wellington: Fairly gusty nor'westers but sunny. Boxing Day - sunny with lighter winds.

Christchurch: Mostly sunny both days.

Dunedin: Gusty westerlies, risk of a morning shower on Christmas Day, then winds easing for Boxing Day and sunnier and warmer.

You can see the Christmas Day forecasts for all the other regions here