UPDATED 6:43pm — Back in January hardly a drop of rain fell in the Auckland region – that was, of course, until a cricket match appeared- bringing the first downpour in sometime.

I jokingly said in an interview with Danny Watson on NewstalkZB that week – that “crickets seems to always add an extra 30% chance of rain” to the forecast in New Zealand.

It appears this week may be no different.

Monday has a 10 to 20% chance of a shower or two – as does Wednesday. But Tuesday sees that chance lifting by about another 30%, putting it around 40 or 50% especially on Tuesday morning…infact latest date this evening goes as far as saying 80% – but that is because the area “responsible” for creating showers will drift over Auckland in the morning – but that doesn’t mean 80% have rain. We think it may be fairly patchy – but we will have a special update around 7am Tuesday with the very latest.

Basically, weather conditions around Auckland will be bit cloudy and humid. Sometimes we can get a period of patchy rain or showers for an hour two which can take a painfully long time to clear (in cricket terms) due to the longer, cooler, nights – but usually once the sun gets up mid to late morning it burns through it and breaks the skies up into mostly dry areas.

The wind flow into Tuesday PM is also more positive, with nor’easters kicking in and blowing any western Tasman Showers back where they came from…although the humid NE flow may produce a couple isolated showers across the region.

The chance of rain WeatherWatch.co.nz has settled for on Tuesday, is now 55% in the morning dropping to 25% into the afternoon.  That’s still a moderate chance of wet weather – but a higher than moderate chance it will be drier rather than wetter on Tuesday PM.

It’s down to the hit and miss nature of showers and if they focus around Eden Park – or further afield across the Auckland reigon.  Something we won’t know until Tuesday itself probably – but certainly the afternoon is looking fairly positive for cricket based on current data.

– By head weather analyst Philip Duncan

Check our Auckland forecast page for updates over the next 36 hours: www.weatherwatch.co.nz/forecasts/auckland