Chilly weather likely to linger

The country is picking itself up after an early taste of winter yesterday but the Antarctic blast that brought snow, hail and gales over the weekend is in no hurry to disappear.

Yesterday Auckland reached 14C and Wellington and Christchurch hit 11C.

MetService forecaster Peter Little said maximum temperatures were likely to be below normal over much of the country for today at least.

"There is nothing in the way of the air mass that was thrust up from the Southern Ocean and there's no warm air to flush it away," he said.

"It's a bit of an early wake-up call for winter, unfortunately."

At dawn parades around the country crowds shivered in buffeting winds and driving rain but later the weather had cleared in many places.

Gisborne stayed on a chilly 9C, the weekend's southerly flow bringing snow down to 500m around the city - "pretty rare for this time of year", Mr Little said.

By the afternoon the gale that brought swells up to 8m in Cook Strait the day before was easing in Wellington but the Desert Road, reopened for a time after being closed by snow and ice on Sunday, was closed again because of what police said were a number of minor crashes.

A cold front carrying some hail is expected to move up the South Island today but clearing weather is due later in the week with rain developing south of the glaciers on Friday.

Towards the end of the week the forecast is for mostly fine weather in the North Island but showery in the east.