There’s been a lot of publicity about the storm that’s moving across New Zealand today – but is it living up to the media attention it’s received so far?

WeatherWatch.co.nz forecasters have been closely watching the system since the early hours of this morning and while the nation’s biggest centres haven’t seen too much in the way of severe weather, some regions have.

Tauranga and western Bay of Plenty have today been pounded by heavy rain, since early this morning the rain hasn’t let up and as of 8:30pm it was only now showing signs of easing in Tauranga.

Heavy rain will continue in eastern Bay of Plenty, East Cape and other eastern areas of the North Island for much of the night.

In Christchurch moderate rain has eased this evening and WeatherWatch.co.nz forecaster Richard Green doubts it will return before midnight.

Mr Green says the main concern is in Timaru and other regions south of the Garden City.

However some weather followers at the NZ Weather Forum are doubting the rainfall will be as high as predicted across Canterbury.

Heavy rain is in fact easing as far south as Ashburton, and may well ease even further south this evening.  But more rain is predicted after midnight with perhaps much heavier rain setting in before dawn.

MetService maintains rain warnings for the area, with their Meteorologists confident that significant rain will continue to feed into the region.

Mr Green says the wind flow certainly suggests this and that it’s very similar to the 1986 flooding of the South Canterbury region which left the region inundated.

WeatherWatch head analyst Philip Duncan says it’s easy for people to think the storm is a fizzer.  “When you see the majority of the population missing out on rough weather it’s easy to think that this system was basically a storm in a teacup.  However the everyday public probably don’t notice what is happening perhaps just a relatively short distance away from them where conditions are far more severe”.

Mr Duncan says when you have to forecast for a nation as narrow as New Zealand you have to accept not all severe weather events will hit the small areas that are heavily populated and that all the warnings were appropriate.