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

NORTH ISLAND – WARM

Nothing very noteworthy happening today, our front over central parts is there but just delivering showers now. A northeasterly airflow over the North Island is bringing in humid conditions and some sun should be about especially this afternoon bringing in warm temperatures. Highs will likely get into the early twenties for most regions but perhaps even approaching the mid twenties is possible.

LOW – LATE FRIDAY / SATURDAY

A low pressure system still moves in from the Tasman Sea later on Friday. While we first talked about heavy rain for the upper South Island and lower North Island on Friday afternoon then yesterday mentioned this could be delayed till Saturday, weather models have now placed the heavy rain late Friday afternoon into the evening. So while the positioning of this rain has remained fairly consistent the timing has been toing and froing a little.

Here at the latest weather maps showing the rain and an accumulation map.

Metservice have a few watches out regarding this system, you can see them here.

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THUNDERSTORM POTENTIAL ON SATURDAY – NORTH ISLAND

Some instability moves over the North Island on Saturday, admittedly it’s not overly strong but there are signs there. This is the result of the upper atmosphere cooling down and good surface moisture.

Anywhere south of Auckland and north of Palmerston North looks to have this potential in the afternoon, a southerly change moving up the east coast could trigger storms and perhaps later in the day Bay Of Plenty may still hold a chance.

The lifted index map below is a simple way to assess instability, while it’s not the be all and end all when it comes to thunderstorms it can be a way of having a quick glance to see if there is potential. A figure of 0 or more into the negative means the atmosphere is turning unstable.