Flag lawns and laundry — it’s going to be wet

Flag the lawns and snuggle up with the TV remote — it’s looking like a washout of a weekend for much of New Zealand as a soggy, warm weather system sinks southwards, tipping out some bouts of heavy rain.

Heavy rain doused the top of the North Island yesterday and last night as a slow-moving subtropical low struck.

Weather stations north of Whangarei recorded between 30-35mm rain during a six-hour period during the day, with heavier showers predicted overnight. Today, periods of rain, with some possibly heavy and thundery falls, are forecast.

Heavy rain was also forecast in the Auckland and Coromandel regions overnight and into this morning.

Philip Duncan, of Weather Watch, said the heaviest falls today looked likely to be just west of Auckland and Northland. The rain would push down to the lower North Island by the end of the day.

The only good chance for battling the grass and drying the laundry outside today might be in Canterbury — but you’ll have to be quick as the rain may set in from late morning according to the MetService.

And while the wet is bearing down on New Zealand from the northeast and later from the southwest, a weather system continues to rumble between Fiji and Samoa, threatening to brew up into a tropical cyclone that could hit New Zealand.

The Fiji Meteorological Service rates as “high” the chance of this system developing into a cyclone either today or tomorrow.

Weather analysts here, however, remain uncertain about where the cyclone, if it develops, might go and what impact if might have.

Weather Watch said one model indicated a “direct hit” of the system on New Zealand, while another showed it heading down into the Tasman Sea.

Duncan said its path wouldn’t be known until Monday.

MetService meteorologist Gerrit Keyser said that although the tropical system is expected to intensify, there are few specifics yet. “There’s a lot of uncertainty around it still.”

The whole North Island would get rain today, with heavy falls in some areas, and the wet would gradually spread on to the South Island too.

“By Saturday night, that band of rainfall reaches the northern part of the South Island,” Keyser said.

From the south, another band of rain would move north, bringing some rain to the West Coast of the South Island.