Here’s what is making the weather headlines today.

RAIN THIS AFTERNOON – WESTERN NORTH ISLAND

A convergence zone sets up this afternoon running through Taranaki, this leads to showers turning to some rain, perhaps bringing the chance of a heavy fall or two. Convection is probably not deep enough to result in thunderstorms but a small chance exists of a rumble or two.

The graph below shows rainfall for inland Taranaki, you can see how it picks up this afternoon. Thursday afternoon brings another chance of an isolated heavy fall.

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WEST COAST THE PLACE TO BE

While not the warmest region around New Zealand today the West Coast should be mostly sunny, only a touch of high cloud may spoil completely clear skies. High’s reach into the mid teens, perhaps a touch higher for Buller.

RAIN OUTLOOK IS MAINLY DRY

Most regions around New Zealand are looking fairly dry though to the 19th October 2022 as can be seen by the “Precipitation percentage of normal map” below. Blue represents wetter than average conditions expected, red is drier.

Parts of the North Island have a few heavy showers or areas of rain pop up in the next couple of days meaning rainfall will be average for these areas as far as the next 10 days are concerned (white colour). Other regions do experience a few showers moving through, especially with a front pushing in from the Tasman Sea on the 16th / 17th October but at this stage no overly persistent rain is expected with this front so the eventual outcome is still drier than average for most.