The warmer, wetter weather has returned and I bet we’ll see some grass growth starting again across the country this week – especially in the north where it’s been unusually mild.

We might be half way through winter, but over most North Island farms the weather was warm and sunny yesterday.

18 degrees was recorded in the Bay of Islands yesterday, which was the nation's highest temperature.

Several other regions had similar temperatures though, with much of Northland on 17, centres across Bay of Plenty reaching 17, Auckland reaching 16 and 17 across the city, New Plymouth also on 17 and Hamilton on 15.

It was a different story in the South Island - with Queenstown climbing to just 4 degrees on Sunday!

On Saturday, Whangarei hit 18 to take the national high, while the Bay of Islands had 17 on Friday. On Thursday Tauranga had 18 degrees.

And this week looks no different with highs in the north again reaching the upper teens while overnight lows mid week will take a big jump as northerlies move in.

So expect more grass growth this week – but if you live on the west coast, watch out for rain warnings.

Heavy rain, associated with this big new Tasman Sea low, is likely to move in over the coming day or two.