It’s a messy forecast for New Zealand over the next few days as low pressure grows, then tracks further southwards on Sunday.

Changing wind directions coupled with our mountains and ranges will break the wet weather up, make we weather more likely in some regions, less likely in others across Friday and the weekend. The shifting airflows mean those rain chances shift from day today. Use the rain graphs in Trends in the WeatherWatch App – or our hourly forecast data – to make sense of it all, coupled with our weather video on Friday. We also have weather video updates on Monday and Tuesday.

There may be some isolated thunderstormson Saturday as instability the low pressure zone creates means sunny skies may suddenly become cloudy and wet. Severe thunderstorms may be possible in the upper North Island with global modelling supporting this. The instability means thunderstorm icons displayed in our forecasts shows hit and miss downpours are likely. The MetService rain radar and the WeatherWatch/RuralWeather Rain Trends graphs are the best products to pair up and help make sense of it all on the day itself. Our forecasts update every hour.