More severe gales are on the way as "a car crash" of weather systems heads towards Otago and Southland today.
The MetService has issued watches for heavy rain in Fiordland and the Otago headwaters, and severe gales in Fiordland and Western Southland, from 10pm today to 5pm tomorrow.
Meteorologist Alec Holden said both watches had the potential to be upgraded to orange warnings.
"This is quite an energetic weather system," he said.
"We’re looking at a very large area of a lot of different features, all sort of car-crashing into each other, and then that’s trucking its way over to New Zealand as we speak.
"By the time it gets here, it is going to be pressing up against a ridge of high pressure that is currently situated around about the North Island.
"So, we’re looking at this very large feature over Monday and Tuesday that is going to be exiting the Tasman Sea and pushing its way against this high pressure system, bringing these very strong winds to the lower South Island.
"And unfortunately, Southland and Fiordland are in between this dialogue, if you will."
He said it was not yet certain whether there would be warning-level severe gales across Otago as well, but he warned there would definitely be strong winds.
Because many trees were battered by extreme winds late last month, he said it was possible more branches or entire trees could still come down in the forecast winds.
"There definitely is a concern for trees that have been injured previously from shedding branches again.
"It’s probably not a wise idea to be hanging out under trees under this event," he said.
He said the winds were expected to calm down again tomorrow night.
"Come the end of Tuesday and going into Wednesday, this frontal feature will have well and truly beaten its adversary, and it will move up in towards the top end of the South Island by that point."
He said the rest of the week would be a mixed bag, but on the whole, southerners could look forward to very warm temperatures in the low-to-mid 20s for much of the week.
