Here’s what is making the weather headlines today.

WARM THEN COOLING DOWN – EASTERN SOUTH ISLAND

Sunny and warm for the eastern South Island with light winds, this afternoon southerlies gradually build with temperatures starting to cool from mid afternoon as cloud thickens. Isolated showers develop about the foothills (mainly South and Mid Canterbury) later this afternoon or evening then spreading towards the coast.

Temperatures overnight about the far south cool down a fair bit tonight with the low chance of a light frost by dawn on Thursday morning for some inland parts of Southland / Otago as cloud breaks away and winds die out.

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RAIN NORTH OF AUCKLAND LATE THURSDAY

East to southeasterly winds build for the upper North Island from Thursday afternoon, in the evening rain moves in north of Auckland, becoming heavy especially in the east.

The rain looks to be moving in now a bit earlier than yesterday mornings update, rain spreads southwards down over the North Island on Friday with rain even getting into Nelson and Marlborough later in the day.

Strong easterly quarter winds are expected to lie over the North Island on Friday with gales possible for some coastal parts. Phil will provide more information in the next video update around midday.

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UNSTABLE THIS WEEKEND

Thanks to some relatively cold upper air and warm surface temperatures / humidity plus converging winds, isolated showers develop about parts of the North and South Islands in the afternoons this coming weekend. Some of these showers may become heavy with thunderstorms.

Saturday holds the bigger risk especially for the lower North Island although this could change as to the exact placement storms may occur.

The map below shows the CAPE for Saturday at 4:00pm. CAPE represents “Convective Available Potential Energy”, basically the higher the number the more unstable the atmosphere. More on CAPE here.