Winter bids a cold and wet farewell

A waxeye suckles a flowering prunus campanulata tree in Greenmeadows. Photo / Duncan Brown

Hawke's Bay's Monday morning will be compounded by some miserable weather.

The final day of a relatively mild winter season will be cold and wet with a brisk 12C high and scattered showers throughout.

MetService meteorologist Emma Blades said a low pressure system coming from the west will bring patchy rain and strong southerlies to the region for the first half of the week.

The low will gradually track across the country and showers will become heavy overnight tonight with winds shifting to strong easterlies .

Temperatures will fluctuate throughout the week with the trough coming from the Tasman Sea bringing moist, cold air.

Tuesday's early downpour will ease to light showers before spring sets in on Wednesday.

The second day of the season will see partly cloudy skies with an 18C high.

A southwest change overnight will see more rain in the region, which is forecast to stay for the weekend.

Ms Blades said while there were weather watches in place for most of the country Hawke's Bay would escape the worst of it.

Vice-president of Hawke's Bay Fruit Growers Association Xan Harding said after a relatively dry winter fruit growers would welcome the rain this week. "Most growers will be pretty relaxed at the moment but in two to three weeks they may start to worry," he said.

With an El Nino period on the way more severe frosts could occur and damage crops.

"The first frost of the season should be on Friday so growers will take precautions such as frost hands and sprinklers."

Hawke's Bay Federated Farmers provincial president Will Foley said it had been a tough time for local farmers.

"A lot of farmers really struggled due to a dry autumn and subsequent lack of feed," Mr Foley said.

He said although conditions have been good and dry many found it hard with the scarce amount of feed.

The dry weather has meant not a lot of mud and less pugging.