Today at 3:31pm is the winter solstice, which means we’re halfway through the solar winter (the 12 weeks with the least amount of available sunlight) but just kicking off the coldest part of the year.

This week does kick off cooler, but by the weekend the nor’westers out of Aussie and the sub-tropics look set to return to parts of NZ.

We have the full forecast to Saturday.