Today’s video is a “Big Picture” one covering New Zealand and the south-west Pacific through to Wednesday of next week, as high pressure moves into the NZ area for the Easter Weekend. On Easter Sunday we do expect some wet weather, mostly in the South Island, and a similar forecast on Monday with some northern showers too.

There is the potential next week for some heavy rain in the upper North Island, although it’s not totally clear yet due a weak but large low that may develop over the Tasman Sea after Easter (or a trough, which is almost a low but not quite).

In the tropics there are two areas of low pressure to monitor. The one closest to Fiji has backed off in the forecasts from becoming a tropical cyclone (but definitely still worth monitoring) while the other low near the Solomon Islands may become a tropical cyclone by Easter Sunday. The Solomon Islands looks most exposed and longer range modelling suggest Queensland may also be exposed, but NZers should monitor both lows going into next week in case the forecasts change (as they have been chopping and changing quite a bit in recent days due to the high pressure zone over the NZ area changing shape and size in each update, which then alters the tropical lows and their potential journies).

Our Thursday video tomorrow will take a closer view at New Zealand’s weather for the long weekend and we’ll update again on the tropical lows.