While Hawke's Bay hasn't escaped the abrupt downpours experienced by much of the central North Island this week, the weather is forecast to deliver plenty of sunshine in the coming days.
MetService meteorologist Tui McInnes said fine weather with isolated, afternoon showers would be the "regime for the week".
"Today warm cloud starts to break away for a nice, sunny afternoon and, depending where you are, you may get a few afternoon showers.
"Realistically the weather through to Saturday is fairly similar. The general outlook is mainly fine with light winds and a chance of afternoon showers."
Yesterday unstable weather conditions saw scattered heavy showers pummel parts of the region during the afternoon and evening.
A large high pressure system over the country, with sinking air pressure below, meant severe thunderstorms were forecast for the entire country.
Warm temperatures, calm winds and plenty of low level moisture had primed the weather in Hawke's Bay for lightning and heavy downpours, Mr McInnes said.
"Those really heavy rainfalls quite often come from thunderstorm clouds and on Monday we had just over 4000 lightning strikes over the country. A good majority of those were over the central North Island from central Wairarapa to north of Gisborne."
Mr McInnes said Hawke's Bay had received hundreds of strikes, however as these were mostly about unpopulated areas much of the public would have missed seeing the action for themselves.
"Hawke's Bay looks like it was probably the most affected region. Part of that is because Hawke's Bay is quite large in terms of our forecasting but there was a lot of lightning concentrated on the ranges and that mostly fell in the Hawke's Bay region itself."
Last week the Heretaunga Plains was sitting at just 8 per cent of the average rainfall for November, according to Hawke's Bay Regional Council climate scientist Dr Kathleen Kozyniak.
However, the heavy downpours this week pushed this figure up to 46 per cent, with the general region now sitting at an average 59 per cent of the monthly average.
Dr Kozyniak said the forecast for the coming days showed little likelihood of much more rain for the month of November.
The MetService thunderstorm outlook for today showed a high risk of thunderstorms during the afternoon and evening for inland areas from Waikato, Rotorua and the Hawkes Bay ranges down to the Tararua Range, and especially about the central high country.
The thunderstorms were expected to produce localised rainfall rates, measuring 10 to 25mm per hour and hail of 5 to 15mm diameter, with a moderate risk of severe thunderstorms that could cause flash flooding, slips and hazardous driving conditions.
Mr McInnes said while those conditions would persist, the general forecast was for mainly fine weather with light winds and afternoon showers.
Temperatures would range in the early to mid 20s throughout the week and reach a weekly high of 24 degrees on Saturday, he said.