Wild weather at the weekend saw strong winds up and down the country, downing powerlines and cutting electricity to homes in Dunedin and Central Otago.

A gust of 198km/h was recorded in the Foveaux Strait on Saturday night.

Heavy rain lashed western parts, with over 200mm of rain falling at Angle Knob in the Tararuas and over 150mm falling at Arthurs Pass in the Southern Alps.

Colder temperatures meant that this rain fell as snow on many higher areas in the South Island, including the Milford and Crown Range roads.

Strong winds have driven big swells up the west coast of New Zealand, with large waves currently working up the east as well. 'The good news is that the weather will calm down through the last few days of spring,” says meteorologist Tom Adams, noting the start of summer on Thursday.

'Monday and Tuesday will continue to see a few showers in the west, with heavy rain at times for the South Island West Coast.”

However, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch should all remain dry with long sunny spells, until a southerly works its way up the South Island to Christchurch late on Tuesday, and arriving into Wellington on Wednesday. Late Tuesday into Wednesday a weakening front could bring some heavy rain to parts of western Nelson and the Kapiti Coast, spreading up into Taranaki later, but by Thursday a ridge has settled over the country bringing light winds and dry conditions for most.

Although there will be a fair bit of cloud trapped under the ridge, summer should start off mostly dry, at least until more fronts approach the country into the weekend.