Weather Watch: Hot, wet and set to continue

The rain pounding much of the country is set to continue into the working week. Photo / Christine Cornege

More rain and high humidity will kick off the final working week before Christmas with a new, deep, low quickly forming east of Tasmania.

The low is set to bring more rain to western and northern New Zealand, plus strong to gale force nor'westers to the South Island's southern and eastern regions. The strong winds may be heavy enough to cause damage.

Gusty winds will also move into Wellington.

Nor'westers are usually hot and dry for eastern parts of the South Island and that's exactly what is predicted, with temperatures in some parts of the east expected to soar into the low to mid 30s on Tuesday.

The air flow associated with this low is particularly hot and humid. Caught up with the remnants of a sub-tropical low (which has brought all the rain to some northern and western parts of New Zealand in recent days) this new low has its fuel on tap - and is expected to rapidly deepen in the coming hours.

Wind flows will be dragged down from the hot and humid Queensland Coast - where recent rains have caused major flooding. This flow means more hot, humid days for Auckland and other northern centres.

So is there light at the end of the tunnel? Well...yes and no. I guess it depends which end of the tunnel you're coming in from!

At this stage it looks as though conditions will clear up, dry up and become less humid for those in the north later in the week.

For those in the east the heat should ease back later in the week with mostly dry weather prevailing - but a slightly cooler sou'wester kicking in.

However for those in the west and south of the South Island a brief clearance is likely at the end of the week - note the word "brief"...as it may be less than 24 hours before another Southern Ocean low pushes in bringing showers and strong winds.