A large area of high pressure moves on to the country today and MetService is forecasting a run of settled weather across New Zealand.

The next band of rain arrives in the southwest of the South Island on Sunday.

“On Friday the area of high pressure really starts to take over and keeps most of the country dry, there may be a couple showers skirting around the coastline but these will be isolated and short lived,” says MetService meteorologist Lewis Ferris.

Saturday is also looking mostly settled but northerly winds start to increase in speed around the Fiordland coast with rain becoming more likely at Milford Sound as the day progresses.

On Sunday, the band of rain moves onto the far south and the strong northwest winds start to spread up the South Island. Our Severe Weather Outlook has a few regions covered with varying risk of wind and/or rain reaching our severe weather criteria.

The North Island is in for a mostly dry and settled weekend, as the band of rain isn’t forecast to reach there before Tuesday.

A weather station at Alexandra Airport only reached 14.9°C this past Wednesday but the return of the northerly winds has us forecasting a high of 25°C on Saturday.