What will Easter weekend bring?

Weather conditions may hop around at Easter. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Easter is upon us. I know this not because the ads tell me to buy Easter Eggs but because I'm getting flooded with emails from people wanting to know what the outlook is for the long Easter Weekend.

It's a bit tricky this far out to be 100% certain - I'm always of the belief that you can have a fairly accurate 5 day forecast then followed by another 5 day "rough guide". Obviously, at this stage, Easter falls into that 'rough guide' forecast.

When we prepare a long range forecast we need to look at a few things. Firstly we look at the long range computer maps... these are like the ones you see in the paper with the cold fronts, lows, highs etc.

However these are more global and project much further out than the ones we typically see in our forecasts. We look at a couple of different organisations as they both of have their strengths and weaknesses.

Once we've done that we have a fairly good idea as to what may happen...whether it's a low forming in the tropics or a big high holding over us.

Long range computer models are highly unpredictable and can often swing wildly from day to day...so it's best to see at least two to four computer runs before you start to feel comfortable with something.

Some computer models showed cyclone Ului making a direct hit on Northland over a number of updates...then a few days out, that forecast changed dramatically.

This is always the risk for long range forecasts - so as long as you don't invest all your trust in them at this early stage you'll find them a helpful rough guide.

Now we look at the weather data - this shows wind direction and wind speed, chance of rain, sky conditions, temperatures, etc. We match them up with the long range weather charts and make sure they fit. If they don't, you need to work out which is the most likely scenario. I often find looking back at recent weather patterns can really help looking forward.

Finally - I use common sense. All the scientific bits are added together and you ask yourself "is this really likely?". If not, why not? Gut instinct, I personally believe, isn't used enough these days.

The big dry looks set to continue over the Easter period.We should see a southerly dying out over central New Zealand as the weekend starts and mainly clear skies everywhere - although some lingering clouds in the east may kick off the weekend...and the weekend may end with clouds building in the south and west and a nor'wester moving up the nation.

Hard to pick a place to be this early, but most main holiday spots are looking good.

The only things we're going to be watching closely will be a possible sub-tropical low...and a front approaching southern New Zealand around Saturday or Easter Sunday.

Here is our region by region forecast for the 4 day weekend. It will be updated daily, with twice daily updates closer to the long weekend and across the Easter break.