Hawke's Bay's worsening weather: The latest on Cyclone Oma

Enjoy the sunshine while it lasts, because regardless of which way Hurricane Oma turns, Hawke's Bay's weather is going to take a turn for the worse.

MetService meteorologist Tui McInnes says the most likely scenario is that Oma will turn towards Australia and avoid New Zealand, but a low pressure system will still cause severe weather for much of the county.

"We are still looking at quite a wet and windy weekend."

"If Oma stays well away we are still looking at the development of a low pressure system from the south."

"That is actually set to bring some quite significant weather with it."

He said there would be persistent rain across the country, heavy in the East Coast along with high winds.

Along with the wet and wild weather there is likely to be a drop in temperatures, with highs in the high teens on Sunday and Monday.

Overnight temperatures are expected to just hit double digits.

The mixture of current warm air sitting over the country, with a blast of cold air causes the volatile weather.

If Oma heads towards New Zealand, the country will still be hit with heavy rain, but it is hard to tell which regions at this stage.

He said the problem is being a small country in a big ocean surrounded by big weather systems is that there is major variance as to where the weather could hit.

He said while at this case it was unlikely for Oma to affect New Zealand, the storm was still far away and moving slowly, which was making its path hard to predict.

The weather could also spell bad swells for the East Coast, which would be picking up on Sunday.

"Decent swell is what you get with any of these systems with strong winds, and it looks like the main area of bigger swells...is along the East Coast of the North Island."

He said the closer they got to the weekend, the better MetService would understand the situation.