A warm, summery feeling experienced by parts of the South Island today will be short-lived, MetService says, as temperatures are set to plunge along the east coast.
MetService meteorologist Katie Lyons told 1News the temperature change would be driven by a cold front from the southern ocean moving northward this evening.
"It'll move up and over the rest of the South Island today and tonight. That brings rain, but also in behind it brings plummeting temperatures," she said.
A yellow heavy rain watch was issued today for Fiordland about and north of Dusky Sound until 9pm tonight, and Southland until 7pm.
Today Blenheim reached a high of 28C, while Christchurch got to 26C.
Monday's forecasted highs for those places were 17C and 15C, respectively, Lyons said.
Highs for other places including Invercargill and Timaru were forecast to be "around the 14C or 15C mark", Lyons said.
"It'll be about two days that people will feel these colder temperatures, maybe two to three.
"Then things will start to return back to sort of more normal climatological average temperatures, [with] highs in the low 20s."
The cold front may also hit lower parts of the North Island's east coast including Napier, Hastings and Gisborne, but with much less intensity, she said.
"It'll lose a bit of steam as it does — which is always the way with these cold fronts from the Southern Ocean, they lose their punch a bit."
Seesawing temperatures were common in Autumn, Lyons said.
Kiwis could expect further cold fronts to make it further up the country than they did during summer.
"It's just going to be more of this as we get towards winter and these temperatures start to drop."
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