South Island to be blasted with heavy rain and gale force winds

  • 18/07/2018
South Island to be blasted with heavy rain and gale force winds
Photo credit: Newshub

A surge of cold weather is expected to slam the South Island this weekend.

Much of the South Island will be exposed to heavy rain that is usually only experienced on the West Coast as well as being slammed with gale force winds on Saturday, WeatherWatch says.

Wind and rain warnings could be established, they say.

However the fast moving front won't hang around for very long. 

WeatherWatch is expecting it to have cleared by Sunday morning, with the North Island escaping the bad weather altogether.

The country should have good weather up until this weekend - with only the west coast of the North Island seeing some light rain on Thursday.

MetService also has a severe weather outlook in place for the South Island - with significant amounts of rain expected to fall on the West Coast and in Nelson. 

Inland Otago and Canterbury are expected to be worst hit with the severe winds, MetService says.

Newshub.