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Up to 55,000 Aucklanders have woken up to one of the coldest mornings of the year after more than 24 hours without power.

MetService meteorologist Stephen Glassey said it got down to 7.5C at 5.30am, and could drop further by dawn.

This morning lines company Vector said about 55,000 Auckland homes and businesses were still without power, down from 79,000 last night, and may not have the lights back on for three days.

Vector was aware of nearly 400 outages throughout Auckland, after its network was extensively damaged in Tuesday night's ferocious storm. Hurricane-force winds reached 140km/h in the city and peaked at 213km/h at Manukau Heads.

At the storm's peak 182,000 properties were without power.

The weather is forecast to clear for Auckland through the day, but the abrupt end to summery conditions will continue as another "fast-moving front" arrives in the South Island this morning.

It will dump heavy rain there before making its way into the North Island by this evening.

"There is a possibility of thunderstorms, strong winds and heavy rain for parts of the North Island, in particular western areas including Northland, Auckland and Waikato."

A wind watch is in place for Northland, Auckland including Great Barrier Island, Waikato and the Coromandel Peninsula, from 9pm to 3am, when westerly winds may rise to a severe gale.

It was a wintry night across the country.

The coldest areas at 5.30am were Nelson Lakes at -4.8C and Tekapo at -4C.

Elsewhere, Dunedin Airport was sitting at -1.6C, Timaru and Blenheim -1C, and Taupo -0.5C.

As the storm that battered Auckland moved east yesterday it was on an easing trend, and weather was much less extreme overnight.

"There has been some heavy showers and hail, but generally it has been on an easing trend," Glassey said.

Snow fell in in Te Urewera on the ridges around Lake Waikaremoana.

A few scattered showers linger in Northland, Wellington, Wairarapa and Gisborne, but should clear through the morning.

The front moving over the country today will be quite brief, and will be gone by tomorrow.

"We will just be left with a southwesterly flow," Glassey said.

"It is looking like some isolated showers tomorrow in western areas.

"In the weekend the upper North Island looks like there might be some patchy rain, but the rest of the country will be under ridge of high pressure with mostly fine weather."

That won't last long either - another front and bout of rain is coming into west of the South Island on Sunday.