A cold front is tonight roaring up both coasts of New Zealand from the south and will bring heavy, squally showers to the west coast and a cold change to the east coast.

Heavy showers will again move into western areas from the West Coast up to Auckland bringing another night of disturbed sleep for some.

The rain or showers will be squally with gale force winds and hail.  Some gusts may be damaging to trees and powerlines.

This afternoon more power was cut this time in Bay of Plenty after winds exceeded 100km/h bringing down trees onto powerlines.

The showery conditions will start to ease tomorrow morning as the front zooms up the nation and clears the country to the north east however yet another cold front will quickly move into Southland tomorrow afternoon or evening and then into the North Island overnight and into Friday bringing more squalls to north and more snow to the south.

Reports having come in this afternoon of hail have come in from Christchurch as the southerly changed rolled through.  Conditions aren’t too cold though, with 10 degrees this hour.

Temperatures are dropping quickly in Southland with snow levels falling.  It’s currently just 2 degrees in Lumsden, 3 degrees in Gore and 4 in Invercargill with a ‘feels like’, or wind chill, temperature of -4 in the city.

Dunedin has 4 degrees too.