It could reach warning criteria between midday and midnight.
While around the Banks Peninsula gusts could come close to warning strength from Monday evening until early Tuesday morning.
There would be the possibility of snow flurries near sea level in Southland and Otago during Monday night and early Tuesday morning, Mr Gorman said.
Meanwhile, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has forecast "near normal'' weather for the next three months.
For almost every region in New Zealand, NIWA is predicting a 50 per cent chance of average winter temperatures and a 40 per cent chance of average rainfall.
Weather Watch analyst Philip Duncan has an icier prediction for winter.
He said the weekend's fine weather would be short lived and he anticipated two cold snaps this week.
"Gone are the days of having a week of settled weather,'' said Mr Duncan, who predicts New Zealand is six times more likely than normal this winter to have a nation-wide polar blast similar to the one that brought snow to Auckland last year.
"There's still a 70 per cent chance we're not going to get a repeat of last August. We need quite a few things to fall into place ... (but) we've got all the right ingredients to have another nation-wide polar blast.''
This weekend's "drier and sunnier'' weather is a small blessing as winter starts to set in, Mr Duncan said.
NIWA's autumn review reports record sunshine across much of the South Island and western North Island.
Of the six main centres in autumn, Auckland was the warmest, Tauranga the sunniest, Wellington the wettest and cloudiest, and Christchurch the coolest and driest.
