It may be the meteorological start to winter already, and the official astronomical start is only two weeks away, but the current weather pattern across New Zealand still is Autumn-like according to WeatherWatch.co.nz forecasters.

Despite the recent cold snap Autumn is defined by summer slowly fading and hints of winter increasing. It means cold snaps, frost and snow are all expected in late Autumn – but so too are warm sunny spells.

On Monday morning (yesterday) frosts were developing as far north as the Auckland region – by Monday evening the start of the warmer wind flow had kicked in there and across Tuesday and Wednesday most of New Zealand will be affected by milder winds out of the sub-tropics, or at least the north.

By the end of this week we’re back to windy westerlies – favouring wetter weather in the west and dry and mild in the east.

The coming weekend sees windy westerlies turning cooler sou’west with showers.

Next week sees high pressure dominating north of New Zealand and brushing regions like Northland and Auckland – bringing calm-ish weather but windy, mild, westerlies continue over the rest of New Zealand.

This pattern may continue for the next two weeks – and while a cold ‘winter like’ southerly may well return this month, the general theme for June is windy westerly quarter winds…in other words, continuing the Autumn pattern we’ve already seen so far this year.

Image / The forecast temperature map for two weeks from now (June 20th) shows mild weather over the north and colder weather in the south – the hallmarks of a westerly flow.  

– WeatherWatch.co.nz