Rain on an umbrella at night. Photo: UnSplash/ Nechama Lock
Heavy rain warnings have been issued for Coromandel Peninsula and Gisborne, north of Tolaga Bay.
Locals should expect up to 140mm of rain, MetService said, the heaviest falls coming on Monday morning. There was a low chance the orange warning might be updated to red (severe weather).
"We have heavy rain warnings for Coromandel, but also for those northern parts of the Tai Rawhiti region with this area of low pressure feeding rainfall into those regions, those northeasterly winds keeping that rainfall feeding through most of the daytime," MetService meteorologist John Law told Morning Report on Monday.
"So we have those warnings running right the way through to around about eight or nine o'clock this afternoon, just rain piling up and pushing in on those northeasterly winds."
Residents on the coast might see a bit less rain than those inland.
Meanwhile in the South Island, the ranges of the Tasman District northwest of Motueka has been upgraded to a heavy rain warning from 9pm on Monday.
"As we head in towards the night-time, the risk runs down towards the south," Law said.
"A wet couple of days in store as we head through today and tomorrow."
The deluge is expected to kick in after 9pm Monday and continue through the night.
The Bryant and Richmond Ranges are also under a heavy rain watch from 11pm on Monday .
"It may well be a case that we see some surface flooding in these regions, especially where you have that persistent nature of the rainfall - ao particularly on the eastern side of the hills, perhaps to the west, not as much, but those eastern areas that we have got the risk of some surface floods.
"It is well worth taking extra care, extra caution if you're out and about this morning."
From Wednesday the storms should ease, with an "unsettled showery westerly flow" across the country before a "series of cold fronts" arriving from the west on Friday, the MetService website said.
The rain was not likely to fall in places which have suffered dry conditions of late, Law said, but that may chance as the week goes on.
"It has been really tough, particularly across those western parts of the country. Now, I think while this rainfall is mainly on the eastern side, as we head through the week we'll find the next front moving in from the west, which will hopefully bring some much-needed rainfall towards places like Waikato and towards Waitomo as well and that western side of the country. It's been really dry through January and February.
"We also find some really humid air with this as well, so we're going to find it's really muggy through the nighttime… it's coming in from the subtropics, so it's bringing all that warm, humid, muggy air with us. I think that's gonna be something we've really notice across the North Island tonight. Some of our nighttime temperatures, 19C, 20C, so a really warm night tonight.
"I think it's gonna make a real impact on us as we head through and towards Tuesday as well. Spots out towards the east, places like Hastings, Napier, have been really cool through most of January and February, but we might find our temperatures back out to about 30-odd degrees through there for the next couple of days…. And that pattern is likely to continue. We're not seeing any sort of break in with southerlies or anything."
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