{"id":318908,"date":"2026-03-08T08:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T08:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/318908\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T08:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T08:36:11","slug":"heavy-rain-down-south-sweltering-in-canterbury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/318908\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavy rain down south, sweltering in Canterbury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Downpours are set to strike the lower South Island, with\u00a0Fiordland and Southland under heavy rain watches.<\/p>\n<p>MetService warned that the rainfall could approach warning criteria and there was a moderate\u00a0chance of Southland&#8217;s watch being upgraded to a warning.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83c\udfb6You&#8217;re hot then you&#8217;re cold\ud83c\udfb6<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udc69\u200d\ud83c\udfa4My girl Katy Perry has summed up the east coast of the South Island today and tomorrow. <\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcc9Northwesterly winds and sunny conditions ahead of a cold front are causing temperatures to rise today, plummeting tonight as the front moves through!\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yQ4F2987yM\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/yQ4F2987yM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 MetService NZ (@MetService) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MetService\/status\/2030371889227657232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">March 7, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The watches are in place from 9am today, with Fiordland about and north of Dusky Sound&#8217;s watch ending at 9pm.<\/p>\n<p>Southland is under a heavy rain watch until 7pm.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the South Island&#8217;s east coast, however, is set for a scorching Sunday, with temperatures almost reaching 30\u00b0C.<\/p>\n<p>MetService said northwesterly winds and sunny conditions ahead of a cold front were driving the hot temperatures.<\/p>\n<p>It said Blenheim was expected to reach 29\u00b0C, while Christchurch was forecast to hit 28\u00b0C, Timaru\u00a025\u00b0C and Ashburton 27\u00b0C.<\/p>\n<p>Further south, Dunedin was set to reach a high of just 19\u00b0C.<\/p>\n<p>A cold front will see temperatures along the east coast dip on Monday.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Downpours are set to strike the lower South Island, with\u00a0Fiordland and Southland under heavy rain watches. MetService warned&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-318908","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}