Heavy rain watch: Days of wet weather ahead for Hawke’s Bay

Ominous weather is on the way for Hawke's Bay. Photo / Warren Buckland

Get your umbrellas and gumboots ready - it’s likely Hawke’s Bay will also bear the brunt of the bad weather that’s set to sweep across the North Island this weekend and into next week.

A heavy rain watch was announced for Eskdale southwards on Friday morning for a period of 36 hours from 9am Saturday to 9pm Sunday, with the possibility of thunderstorms and a heavy rain warning to come.

MetService meteorologist Dan Corrigan said winds from the east will push in a steady stream of rain to Hawke’s Bay over the weekend and heading into next week.

Showers were due to start with an on-and-off cycle on Friday afternoon.

“The rain looks like it will set in on Saturday and become pretty steady and hang around right into Tuesday.”

Corrigan said there was still a bit of uncertainty around what models were telling meteorologists about the rain amounts for the region, but MetService was closely monitoring the situation and would continue to update its warnings system to keep people informed.

“We’re going to be updating our severe weather warnings if there is a risk that we can see warning amounts of rain through the region.

“There’s moderate confidence that rain could get close to warning thresholds on Saturday and Sunday.”

Corrigan said the easterly winds are set to be “noticeable”, but at this stage don’t look to be strong or severe.

“It’s more of a rain event than a wind event that we are going to see over the weekend. But it is set to be breezy.”

Friday morning saw temperatures in Napier reach a low of 0C, but overnight temperatures for the week ahead look to slightly warm up as a result of cloud cover.

“The next couple of nights we are looking at a low of 6C or 7C across the region, so not warm but warmer than 0C.

“Maybe one less extra blanket on the bed,” Corrigan said.