One News weather presenter Jim Hickey has abandoned his usual weather forecasting format in favour of warning viewers that “winter is coming, and it’s coming for us all.”

On Monday night’s weather forecast, Hickey abruptly dispensed with his usual in-depth analysis of meteorological patterns mixed with casual banter, and instead revealed the shocking truth that for the last several decades, it has not actually ever been winter, and has, in fact, been summer “for as long as we can remember.”

But that was all about to change, he warned, saying that if New Zealand thought it knew what winter was, it had “another thing coming.”

“Bad news, Whitianga,” said Hickey. “That endless summer we talked about? Not so flash. So put a warm one in the microwave for me, Kerikeri, because winter is coming.”

Hickey, who claimed that he knew winter was coming because he’d seen it, and that he’d seen it because he could enter the mind of a crow and fly north, was particularly concerned that the nation was busy bickering amongst itself instead bracing for a threat “greater than anything we’ve faced in a generation.”

“No matter where you stand, whether you hate Key or Shearer,” said Hickey, “whether you don’t want Moorhouse to win or you don’t want Tom Batchelor to win, none of that’s important. None of them are as great a threat as what we’re about to face, Dunedin.”

“You know what I’m talking about, Kaitaia,” he added. “You’ve seen it already.”

Hickey then gave an emotional speech that implored the nation to unite behind what he called “the Lord of Light,” and march northward, united, to Cape Reinga.

“And that’s Jim with the weather,” said newsreader Simon Dallow. “Thanks Jim.”