KELLY HODEL/WAIKATO TIMES/Waikato Times
Heavy rain is expected for several parts of the country in the next few days.
Parts of the upper North Island are expected to end the week with heavy rain and gales, little more than a week since the previous bout of wet weather caused flooding in Auckland and Northland.
The wet weather, which included risk of thunderstorms, was due to hit on Thursday afternoon and would develop into the evening, MetService meteorologist Mmathapelo Makgabutlane said.
Thunderstorms could bring localised bouts of heavy rain, which could result in flooding.
“It’s been such a wet year and the ground is really saturated, so it doesn’t take all that much for flooding to be seen,” Makgabutlane said.
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The bad weather was expected to move across the rest of the North Island and into the south on Friday and Saturday.
The west coast of the South Island had, in the last 24 hours, been very wet, and snow was seen in elevated areas of the south, with a height of 1000m.
People in Auckland got out of bed on Thursday to a temperature of 7C, expected to hit a high of 18C. In Wellington it was 13C and was only expected to reach 16C, with Christchurch at 8C and expected to get to 14C.
“But that big weather we are expecting, that will kick off later this afternoon [Thursday] and then tomorrow and Saturday,” Makgabutlane said.
Abigail Dougherty/Stuff
Surface flooding at pie shop in Mt Albert, Auckland, on May 9.
MetService is warning of a chance of heavy rain in Northland, Auckland, Coromandel Peninsula and Bay of Plenty, covering a range of time periods starting from mid-afternoon Thursday through to mid-afternoon Friday.
It also has moderate confidence of heavy rain in eastern Bay of Plenty and northern Tairawhiti, and about Nelson/Tasman and northern Marlborough, on Friday and Saturday.
Northeast winds could also approach severe gale strength in exposed places in those areas during the same 24-hour period. There was moderate confidence of northwest gales in Northland late on Friday.
From late Friday into Saturday, there was moderate confidence of severe gales tending west-northwest affecting much of the upper North Island from Taranaki to Hawke’s Bay northwards.
MetService is forecasting gusts in exposed areas to 90kph on Thursday in Northland, Auckland and Coromandel Peninsula.
Niwa Weather said rainfall amounts of 50-100mm was possible for parts of Northland by midnight Friday, but it also said the weather pattern could take a “drier turn” from next week through to mid-June.
Below normal rainfall would likely be a response to the emergence of El Niño, which could also be the reason for an expected dry spell across most of Australia through to the end of May, Niwa Weather said.