Here’s what is making the weather headlines today…..

PLENTY OF WET WEATHER

A low pressure system flings a frontal band over the North Island today bringing rain, heavy falls this morning Taranaki through to Northland then moving into Bay Of Plenty this afternoon. There may be an isolated heavy fall for Taranaki mid to late afternoon as an area of instability moves over.

Rain for the top of the South Island may be heavy also then finally about inland Canterbury down into Central Otago / inland Southland isolated showers develop this afternoon, some may be heavy with thunder.

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THUNDER CHANCES ON SATURDAY – EASTERN SOUTH ISLAND

Instability forms for the east of the South Island on Saturday afternoon, south of Banks Peninsula for the most part with a low risk in general. Eastern Otago is the hot spot, perhaps South Canterbury too with a moderate risk.

The first map below shows the showers forming in the 3 hours up to 7:00pm. The second map is a lifted index chart, below 0 conditions are considered unstable, the third map is a CAPE chart (convective available potential energy), the higher the figure the more energy any potential storm that forms has.

More on the lifted index here.

More on CAPE here.

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RAIN OUTLOOK

An average amount of rain is expected for most of New Zealand over the next seven days, perhaps the northeastern corner of the North Island has a little more rain than average. The upper North Island is looking a touch drier than average.

We do have some instability forming in the afternoons for some inland hills and ranges over the next seven days, this could lead to isolated downpours. In turn some isolated spots may see a slightly higher amount of rain than could normally be expected at this time of year but due to the nature of these showers they aren’t really showing in the image below, just something to take note of.

The precipitation percentage of normal map below runs through to Friday 10th November. Blue coloring means that part of the country is likely to see more rainfall than would normally be expected at this time of year, red means less rainfall is expected and white is an average amount of rainfall. The more intense either red or blue then either scenario is more true.