Finally, there's a break from miserable weather

Photo / Paul Estcourt

The miserable weather conditions that have battered much of the country could be over.

MetService duty forecaster Geoff Sanders said a nagging, cold southwesterly meant Auckland would still be in for temperatures hovering around a cool 11C.

Mr Sanders said isolated and heavy showers were likely in Auckland this afternoon, with a risk of thunderstorms and occasional wind gusts of about 60km/h.

"If it's a southwesterly it's generally not good news for Auckland."

But things should improve in Auckland tomorrow when the windflow changes to a southerly, bringing clear and fine conditions.

The rest of the North Island will have fine or improving weather tomorrow in the west but cold and showery conditions in the east and around Mt Ruapehu, which yesterday had a base of 160cm of snow on Turoa and 135cm on Whakapapa.

The South Island will have mostly fine weather in the west and inland with morning frosts, showers in the south and a few showers possible along the east coast.

WeatherWatch analyst Philip Duncan said this week's weather was caused by a deep low in the southern ocean that moved towards New Zealand nearly two weeks ago "and hung around".

"Basically what it did was pull the roaring forties up over us," he said.

"It was similar to the one in September last year, which was basically two weeks of unsettled weather and finally it's clearing away."