Strong winds forecast for Sunday night and Monday in Hawke's Bay

The rays of sun on a Sunday morning in Hawke's Bay, looking northwards from south of Hastings, mix with forebodings of wind up to gale force in the region over the next two days. Photo / Linda Hall

Hawke's Bay is for a day's buffeting from winds forecast in a 'strong wind watch' issued by national weather agency MetService on Sunday.

The warning, covering the period of about 30 hours early Sunday night to late Monday, was for northwest winds which may approach severe gale force at times.

By late afternoon today there had been gusts up 65km/h at Hawke's Bay Airport, north of Napier, motorists on the Napier-Taupo Road (State Highway 5) were reporting strong gusts in the notorious area of windy gap and a meteorologist at national weather agency MetService said there could be "some quite prolonged periods" of wind over the next 20-24 hours.

There was also a snow warning for the Desert Rd stretch of State Highway 1, but while there were warnings about adverse winter weather for most of the country the snow warning did not include SH5.

The wind warning extended across the North Island from Hawke's Bay, Gisborne and Wairarapa to Taranaki, but warnings for other regions included heavy rain, snow and storms, and warnings of damage in some areas.

While not expected to be hit by the most severe of the conditions, Hawke's Bay's regional forecast was for clouds and scattered rain tomorrow and gusty northwesterlies, which could be strong in exposed places.

Finer weather was forecast for much of the rest of the week, although temperatures were expected to range from highs of about 17C to lows of about 7C from Hastings north, to a little cooler in southern Hawke's Bay.

MetService meteorologist Gerard Bellam told NZME it would be "very stormy" in some other areas as a deep low pressure crosses the country, bringing windy and wet conditions, with snow.

Bellam said the whole country should keep up to date with forecasts, warnings and watches as the weather was affecting large parts of the country, especially the South Island, which had 11 warnings or watches in place.