A smattering of drizzle across one or two eastern parts and isolated light showers over the Far North is about as good as it gets today when it comes to any form of precipitation.

Looking further ahead though there’s a reason perhaps to be more optimistic.

There’s good news and bad news for those wanting rain in the short to medium term.

The not so good news is that the next front moving across parts of the South Island late tomorrow isn’t looking strong and continues to weaken. Perhaps a handful of drizzly showers could be the most expected in eastern and southern areas from Christchurch to Invercargill but in some places that could be considered optimistic.

“Each front over the south this week hasn’t been very active and even though the cricket in Dunedin was affected yesterday some of the problem was poor light than constant rain” Weather Analyst Richard Green says. 

The good news in with the latest data shows a couple of areas of activity taking place over the country from the 17th-21st of March.
A sub-tropical low potentially could sweep down over parts of the upper North Island on the 18th and then a more substantial fall of rain could take hold and be more widespread across the north on the 20th and 21st.

The other bit of good news is that a Tasman sea low looks to take aim at the South Island on the 17th/18th and hopefully provide some relief across very dry areas.

Again these aren’t guarantees and at times they have been more of a possibility whereas the latest model run suggests it could become more of a probability.

We’ll continue to closely monitor and track the latest rain-bearing systems each at WeatherWatch