Big Wet set to hit North Island

Thunderstorms bringing torrential rain are set to douse the upper North Island today as the tail-end of the storm that battered South Australia this week makes its presence felt this side of the Tasman.

The MetService yesterday issued severe weather warnings for Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Waitomo, Coromandel and the Bay of Plenty, warning of heavy rain, strong winds and thundery conditions into this afternoon.

The storm, which knocked out power and caused widespread flooding in much of South Australia, will have lost most of its punch by the time it reaches New Zealand, but WeatherWatch head analyst Philip Duncan warned it could still cause localised flooding and heavy downpours.

“There will be little pockets of severe weather that we will be monitoring in two areas: one is heavy downpours that will be moving into mainly the North Island during Sunday.

“The other will be isolated thunderstorms that will also be focused around the North Island.”

Most of the wet weather would hit the top quarter of the country, where there was a risk of some localised flooding.

The stormy weather will herald a major shift in the easterly weather patterns the country has been experiencing since the start of spring.

“The airflow for the first half of October is turning westerly and it’s all because of this change coming in.

“So, it’s not so much severe weather that it’s bringing in, it’s more that it’s bringing in a big change to the pattern that we’ve been seeing.”

Farmers and growers would notice the change with the majority of the rainfall moving from the east of the country to the west.

Monday and Tuesday would remain unsettled while, Wednesday would see the start of “traditional” spring weather.

“For the first half of October it’s going to be traditional spring weather — lots of westerlies, wind, and warmth — lots of Ws.”