The winter solstice is living up to its name today, as people around the country wake up to a chilly morning on the shortest day of the year.
Fine weather is forecast for much of the country - except for the eastern part of the North Island, which will see some showers during the day.
Aucklanders heading in to work early this morning are in for a cool start; with the temperature feeling like 3C just before 7am, according to MetService.
A high of 13C is forecast for the City of Sails and an overnight low of 5C will mean for double the blankets tonight. Fine conditions are expected throughout the day.
The weather authority says now is the time for people to make use of the "feels like" temperature feature on its website, which shows what the temperature actually feels like for different parts of New Zealand.
Several centres recorded very low temperatures early on, including -1C in Timaru, Invercargill and Blenheim. Queenstown was recording -2C and Hamilton 1C, while Stewart Island was in for a surprising 5C.
Many parts of inland Otago were hoveing around -3C
The coldest place around 7.30am was Omarama, where -7.1C was recorded, while the warmest was Kaitaia, which was recording 10.1C.
