A heavy rain watch has been issued for Western Bay of Plenty this afternoon.
MetService has predicted a front, preceded by a band of northeasterly rain, will move southwards over northern New Zealand today.
Rain is expected to be heavy for a time, and accumulations may reach short-duration warning criteria about Coromandel Peninsula and Western Bay.
A total of 50mm of rain is expected to fall in the Bay of Plenty west of Te Puke from 1pm-7pm. The same amount of rainfall is predicted over Coromandel Peninsula between 11am-5pm.
MetService meteorologist Claire Flynn said the watch had been put in place due to reasonable rainfall accumulations of up to 50mm this afternoon and early evening.
"The Bay of Plenty has just had all of that rain so it is pretty damp already and it does not take much to cause problems."
She advised residents to drive to the conditions and keep an eye on the rain radar.