Easter brings changeable weather

Easter's changeable weather is to be expected. Photo / Kellie Blizard.

Easter is almost here and the weather maps are slowly starting to agree on what the likely forecast is.

One thing that's becoming very certain is the fact that conditions are becoming more changeable around New Zealand – very normal for this time of year and perhaps a glimmer of hope for the many dry regions across New Zealand at the moment.

With the Auckland forecasts I've helped prepare for WeatherWatch this summer it's been a fairly easy job with so much dry weather. In February the forecast of "sunny and cloudy periods, sou'westerlies" became almost a copy and paste job with highs holding firming over the northern Tasman Sea and nothing to moving in to confuse matters.

However in the past couple of weeks, despite the forecasts not changing a great deal, the amount of time and thought going in to producing them has greatly increased. This is because rather than the weather maps looking the same for 10 days in a row we're seeing lots of low pressure systems popping up around us, challenging that "sunny and cloudy but dry" forecast.

The latest culprit is a tropical low currently developing south west of Fiji. This low will very slowly drift south towards New Zealand and despite being in the computer models since the end of last week the models still can't completely agree on its path.

One computer model shows the potential for it to bring in some rain or shower activity to eastern Coromandel, Bay of Plenty, East Cape and Gisborne on either Sunday or Monday. Another computer model shows the low clearly missing us well to the north east.

At this stage I'm of the believe that half way between those two models is the correct forecast. So I'd expect cloudy conditions to spread over north eastern New Zealand on Sunday or Monday, but the high should bring sunny, settled, weather to central and western regions. Meanwhile a cold front will hit Southland on Saturday and will then head north to reach Wellington on Sunday or Monday.

I think the place to be this weekend will be New Plymouth but other good weather spots will be Waikato, Taupo, Palmerton North, Nelson and Blenheim.

Check out our detailed Easter weekend forecast covering all regions across New Zealand.