Gale, snow warnings in place for central North Island

A gale warning is in force around the Taranaki coast as heavy winds and snow cover part of the North Island.

The Met Service is warning of heavy seas around Cape Egmont whipped by 25 to 35 knot winds.

It comes as heavy snow warnings remain in place around the central North Island, Hawkes Bay and Gisborne.

A MetService spokeswoman said snow flurries were expected in the Central Plateau and reports had been received of snow flurries at the top of the Rimutaka road.

Snow was expected down to 500m in the Wellington region, while in the Central North Island snow was expected down to 700m, she said.

"There won't be much let-up in the wind today but it will slowly ease tomorrow," she said.

The weather was expected to ease by the weekend.

A snow warning had been issued to farmers in the Central North Island, she said.

Federated Farmers president Charlie Pederson said farmers in the high country would be prepared for the weather and would be doing their best to prepare to protect their stock.

"The reason farmers lamb at this time of the year is to avoid bad weather."

While it had been a challenging year for farmers, they prepared for the weather as best they could.

Mr Pederson said if the predicted snow did not "hang around" the damage should not be too bad.

Wellington was getting back to normal today after southerly gales blasted the Wellington region yesterday causing the cancellation of all Interislander ferry sailings and severely restricting flights.

While the bad weather had eased enough this morning to allow Interislander passenger ferries and Wellington Airport to follow scheduled departures, wild weather was still expected to hamper travel plans today.

Toll Shipping spokeswoman Sue Foley said Interislander passenger ferries left this morning but 4 metre swells in the Cook Strait meant the journey would take longer than normal.

The company was working to clear a backlog of passengers, who had their travel plans disrupted due to yesterday's cancellations.

A spokeswoman for Bluebridge ferries said all scheduled ferry departures were going ahead, with the first sailing from Picton due at 1pm today.

Staff would be keeping a close eye on the weather in case conditions worsened, she said.

A spokesman for Wellington International Airport said all flights were arriving and leaving on time.