A wild and windy end to Easter weekend as gale force winds blow through Whanganui

Strong northwesterly winds and cooler temperatures marked Easter weekend in Whanganui. Photo / Bevan Conley

Whanganui bore the brunt of some gale force northwesterly winds over Easter.

Meteorologist Lewis Ferris said Whanganui winds surpassed gale-force and reached a peak wind gust speed of 74km/h at 1pm on Monday.

"It was worse in other parts of the country and Whanganui is quite fortunate to get a bit of shelter from the South Island," he said.

"People in the region would have felt the temperature drop as well."

The temperature dropped to 12C on Monday night and rainfall of 10.22m was recorded.

Despite the high winds, Powerco reported a quiet weekend.

"We had two fairly small outages on Monday," a spokesman said.

"Vegetation on power lines caused 47 homes at Whangaehu to lose power from 1.20pm until 5.26 pm and then another tree on powerlines at Marton took out the power to 50 homes from 4.33 pm until12.30am on Monday."

The Whanganui region can look forward to some calmer and milder weather this week as the wind turns southwesterly and drops to speeds of around 35km/h.

"There will still be a few showers and cooler temperatures until Friday when the temperature is forecast to reach 21C," Ferris said.

"Rain is forecast for Saturday and it is likely to continue during Sunday and Monday."

The MetService gardening guide recommends planting vegetables such as garlic, beans, beetroot and leafy greens like kale this week.