Heavy rain warnings as front moves across the country

Heavy rain and thunderstorms have battered parts of the North Island overnight, and more rain is on the way.

Northland, Tairāwhiti/Gisborne and parts of Auckland saw the worst of it on Wednesday night, with eastern areas in the North Island, and Marlborough in the south in the firing line on Thursday.

The low pressure system is moving slowly across northern New Zealand, and is expected to bring a prolonged period of heavy rain and possible thunderstorms into the weekend.

MetService updated its warnings on Thursday morning, with orange heavy rain warnings in place for eastern areas in the North Island, and Marlborough in the south.

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MetService meteorologist Alain Baillie said it was wet in Tairāwhiti/Gisborne overnight with between 80 and 100mm of rain in the ranges around Gisborne, with 30 to 50mm recorded across the region.

Gisborne District Council warned that with the ground in the area already saturated, surface flooding and more road slips and dropouts were expected.

A lengthy section of SH35 in Tairāwhiti was closed from flooding on Wednesday, but had reopened by 8.45am on Thursday.

SH2 from Te Karaka to Mātāwai was closed just before 10am because of flooding.

The orange heavy rain warning was in place for a long 75 hours, with 250 to 350mm of rain expected to accumulate about and north of Tolaga Bay on top of rain that’s already fallen.

About the ranges and further south 150 to 200mm of rain was forecast, with 50 to 100mm to fall about coastal areas south of Tolaga Bay.

There were also orange heavy rain warnings in place for the Coromandel Peninsula, Bay of Plenty west of Te Puke, the Ruahine Range, Kaweka Forest Park, Hawke’s Bay from State Highway 5 southwards and eastern Marlborough south of Ward.

The warning in Coromandel and Bay of Plenty ran till 3pm on Friday, whereas the others carried through into Saturday.

The warning for Gisborne was in place till Sunday.

A heavy rain warning in Northland was lifted, as was a watch for Auckland.

Northland recorded 40mm of rain in Kaikohe in a 12-hour period overnight, but it had mostly eased by Thursday morning.

Auckland and north of Whangaparāoa, had “quite a lot of thunderstorm activity” and saw between 15 to 30mm of rain.

Rotorua had thunderstorms and 50mm of rain. There had also been heavy bursts of rain, with 15mm recorded in one hour.

Niwa said there were nearly 60,000 lightning strikes in the Tasman Sea and near northern New Zealand on Wednesday.

It was expected to reach 17C in Auckland, with a low of 12C. Hamilton would only reach 15C, and with a low of 11C.

In Wellington, the high for the day was 15C with a low of 12C forecast. Christchurch would see a high of 14C, with the low only 10C.

Dunedin had the same high of 14C, but with a chilly low of 5C.