A warm front blows out to the east this morning then a series of cold fronts push north over the country in behind. Wet weather in general today for the western / upper North Island .A pre frontal trough over the upper North Island brings about some instability with a chance of thunderstorms and downpours developing this afternoon. The eastern North Island has rain, clearing this afternoon to sun and hot temperatures.

It’s a wet day for the West Coast with occasional heavy falls, especially Greymouth southwards. Heavy rain for Nelson and Marlborough eases to showers this morning, morning rain in the east clears then it’s mostly sunny with hot afternoon temperatures potentially hitting 30. Morning rain clears Southland and Otago to sunny spells then isolated showers develop in the afternoon, one or two could become heavy with thunder, easing in the evening then widespread rain moves in again overnight with a southwest change.

Northerlies through Cook Strait are blustery or strong, elsewhere winds are light to moderate in strength. Quite muggy and humid today for the North Island, overnight temperatures in the east and for the upper North Island are likely to be in the late teens or early twenties so not the best for sleeping.

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Maps most relevant today are…

• Live Rain Radar
• Thunderstorm page
• Animated Temperature Maps
• RuralWeather: Localised Cloud, UV & Temperature Data & Graphs

See your local hourly & 10 day forecast at WeatherWatch.co.nz – or for more details and event planning visit RuralWeather.co.nz for the most detailed and hyper-local forecasts in NZ.

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#4pm Quite the afternoon across #NewZealand… pic.twitter.com/8b0Auie6de

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) December 29, 2023

Today is the 3 D's

🌫️#Drizzle patches (ugh!)
🌥️#Dry spells (quick, dry the towels!)
⛈️Sudden #Downpours (localised flooding possible)

📡Track it on live @MetService rain radar in conjunction with your HOURLY forecasts from WeatherWatch & RuralWeather: https://t.co/sZ6VGec556 pic.twitter.com/h6NKsZEcCI

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) December 28, 2023