Here’s what is making the weather headlines today

SHOWERS FOR THE WEST COAST AND NORTHEAST NORTH ISLAND

A northeasterly airflow lies over the country today with showers for northeastern parts of the North Island (East Cape through to Northland) and the West Coast, rain this morning for South Westland eases. Elsewhere is looking mainly dry with Southland and Central Otago likely to have a really nice day with afternoon highs in the early twenties.

FRONT MOVES IN FROM THE WEST ON SUNDAY BRINGING RAIN

A front moves in from the Tasman Sea on Sunday into Northland and with it comes rain (possibly heavy), especially in the east then in the evening and overnight the front slips southwards into Auckland, Waikato and perhaps Bay Of Plenty by dawn on Monday. Some figures below generated from ruralweather.co.nz for Sunday, the rain data below is calculated from 7:00am in the morning through to 6:00am the next morning.

Kaitaia – 38.6mm

Kaikohe – 42.8mm

Whangarei – 40.3mm

Dargaville – 34.3mm

Warkworth – 48.9mm

Auckland – 46.1mm

Whangamata – 23mm

Hamilton – 16.9mm

Tauranga – 17.9mm

Note, these figures are just for Sunday and overnight, there is more rain or showers to come for the above areas during Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Please go to ruralweather.co.nz and use the search function to find out more about your location.

UNSTABLE EARLY NEXT WEEK IN THE NORTH

Some unstable weather is on the way early to mid next week, this is the result of very moist warm air at the surface and cold upper air. Unstable meaning a chance of thunderstorms and downpours is looking reasonably likely, the exact placement of these storms at this stage is a little hard to define but anywhere about the upper and western North Island looks to be in with a chance, especially as frontal zones and troughs move through. Monday and Tuesday still look to have reasonably strong wind dynamics so a small tornado is also a possibility.

On the days in question keep up to date with Metservice’s thunderstorm outlook which you can access here.