Kiwis celebrating Father's Day on Sunday can expect a fine day for most of the country, but rain, snow and severe gales are on the way for early next week.
MetService is predicting a few isolated showers in the morning before clearing for Northland down to the Bay of Plenty while the rest of North Island is in for a fine day for Kiwis celebrating Father's Day.
For the South Island, there will be a few occasional showers for Buller and Westland, while Otago will be fine apart from a few showers developing in Dunedin on Sunday morning, with snow to 200 metres in the evening. Clutha, Southland, and Fiordland will see the worst of the weather on Sunday with severe westerlies, heavy showers and snow in the evening.
It comes as MetService issues a strong wind warning for Coastal Clutha, Southland and Stewart Island until 5pm on Sunday with severe gale gusting to 120km/h in exposed places expected.
A road snowfall warning is in place for some of the South Island's main roads. Milford Road (SH94), Arthur's Pass (SH73) and State Highway 1 from Dunedin to Waitati are expected to see periods of snow on Sunday and Monday.
MetService said Monday will see rain developing from Taranaki to Hawke's Bay northwards, with some heavy falls otherwise the rest of the North Island will be fine. In the South Island, there will be occasional showers for most, with snow to 200 metres in the far south.
The weather improves on Tuesday in the North Island with rain in the east while in the South Island it will be fine in the west and north but there will be showers elsewhere.
With spring upon us, NIWA has released new data showing New Zealand experienced its warmest and wettest winter on record with a meteorologist describing it as "mother nature's way of expressing she has a fever".
NIWA said it was the warmest winter on record for the third year with the nationwide average temperature of 9.8 degrees Celsius - 1.4 degrees above the 1981-2010 average.
There were 84 locations, which experienced a record or near-record warm winter with wide-ranging temperatures with Wairoa, north of Napier, reaching 24.3 degrees - the second warmest August temperature - while Aoraki/Mt Cook dropped to a bone-rattling -11.6 degrees - the coldest winter temperature in two years.
It was also the wettest winter on record, which saw devastating floods when a state of emergency was declared in Nelson, Tasman, the West Coast and Marlborough, leaving the area with a massive cleanup on its hands.
Forty-two locations experienced a record or near-record wet winter with NIWA meteorologist Ben Noll saying climate change was having a significant impact.
"We feel like a broken record ... but this is mother nature's way of expressing she has a fever - she is running a higher temperature and it is pretty concerning to see that, successively, season after season," he said.
