The West Coast is expected to \u201cbear the brunt\u201d of a complex low moving in from the Tasman Sea early on before spreading north during the day.<\/p>\n
Law said colder air higher in the atmosphere and milder air near the surface would create \u201cthe perfect conditions\u201d for what he described as \u201cchunky\u201d thunderstorms capable of producing \u201cintense bursts of rainfall\u201d, hail and wind gusts of up to 100km\/h.<\/p>\n
A strong wind watch has also been issued for the Canterbury high country from 10am, with northwesterlies expected to approach severe gale force in exposed places.<\/p>\n
The wet weather is expected to reach Wellington, the K\u0101piti Coast and Taranaki later today before spreading north overnight.<\/p>\n
MetService has issued a heavy rain watch for the Tararua Range from midnight tonight until midday tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Strong wind watches are also in place for Wellington tonight, and coastal Southland, southern Fiordland and coastal Otago tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Auckland is forecast to remain largely dry through today before rain arrives overnight.<\/p>\n
As the front clears, a surge of cold Southern Ocean air is forecast to push north, sending the country \u201cback into cold frosty conditions\u201d tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Law said tomorrow was shaping as \u201ca pretty nasty-feeling day\u201d for the far south, with Southland, Clutha and the Dunedin coast hardest hit by gusty southerlies and freezing downpours.<\/p>\n
The cold blast is expected to reach Wellington on Saturday morning, when strong southerlies are forecast to make an early start feel \u201cpretty raw\u201d, while Wellington and Christchurch struggle to highs of just 8C or 9C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The West Coast is expected to \u201cbear the brunt\u201d of a complex low moving in from the Tasman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9218,27126,64570,254134,2841,19338,5616,71,220034,6559,807,60388,111,43,139,69,2847,6560,8244,6443,18835,11987,20592,1865,4998,18980,23644,102],"class_list":["post-550030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-before","tag-break","tag-brief","tag-chill","tag-country","tag-expect","tag-forecast","tag-from","tag-frosty","tag-heavy","tag-kiwis","tag-mornings","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-only","tag-rain","tag-recent","tag-returns","tag-strong","tag-sweeping","tag-thunderstorms","tag-today","tag-weather","tag-winds","tag-winter","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550030","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=550030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}