MetService says it was a "tale of two islands overnight with regards to temperatures", as heavy rain and wind are forecast to sweep across the country early next week.
The forecaster said the North Island was "significantly warmer", with Tauranga coming out with the leading overnight temperature of 18C.
"The South Island was much cooler as southerlies put a mild chill in the air. Ashburton and Hokitika tied for being the coolest place getting down to 8C.
Those cooling southerlies should be making their way over the North Island today, so the warm nights should be dissipating.
Strong winds and heavy rain on the way as golden weather run ends - watch on TVNZ+
MetService meteorologist Heather Keats told Breakfast yesterday was "quite an active day" with warm daytime temperatures, thunderstorms and about 3500 lightning strikes recorded across the country within a 24-hour period.
She said the risk of thunderstorms today was "quite low", and all watches and warnings in place yesterday have since expired.
"But it is windy, so places like Auckland would have noticed the south-westerly this morning and that’s going to be strong today. Dunedin’s got some strong winds, too.
"But we’ve got high pressure moving in from the west and that’s what we want for the weekend. When we’ve got high pressure, everyone's happy. There will be a few clouds around, an odd shower but generally speaking tomorrow is a great day across the country."
Temperatures still 'swinging around'
Keats said competing air masses were still creating "contradicting" temperatures.
"We’ve had heat alerts out, we’ve seen conditions that are quite similar to heat waves with five or more days of these prolonged, well above-average temperatures.
She said things were cooling from today, however, and people may notice it was a "little windier too".
“So there’s a southerly shift so for places like Ashburton, their high is only 16C today. So that’s 5C below average, and earlier in the week they were 5C above average. So we’re still swinging around.
“The actual weekend is looking for typical for this time of year, so temperatures all over the show quite in line with what we’d expect.”
Next bout of severe weather from Monday
Keats said there were “quite interesting features coming from Monday” for the South Island, with strong wind and heavy rain watches and warnings likely to be issued.
“So those fronts will move up the South Island on Monday, and sit over central New Zealand on Tuesday, so that’s kind of our next focus.
She said in the North Island it wouldn’t be “quite as hot and sunny as it has been”.
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