Road snowfall warnings are in place for parts of the country including the Lewis Pass, Arthurs Pass, Lindis Pass, Milford Rd, the Crown Range near Wanaka, and Springs Junction between Blenheim and Kaikoura.
New Plymouth was probably likely to bear the brunt of most of the wet weather, as up to 40mm of rain is forecast to fall until midnight tonight. Other western areas including Raglan and Hokitika, Westport would also be wet today.
Auckland can expect showery conditions most of the day with a few breaks in between.
The improving weather follows days of thunderstorms and tornadoes across the country.
An electrical storm lit up the sky across parts of Waikato, Taranaki and down to Wellington this morning, but a severe thunderstorm watch for the whole west coast of the North Island has now been lifted.
Power has also been restored to more than 4000 people after the storm caused an outage in Wellington's Newlands, Johnsonville and Paparangi suburbs, also affecting traffic lights.
Noisy night?
In the last 12 hours 2910 lightning strikes were recorded in the New Zealand region. Although many were...
Posted by MetService New Zealand on Wednesday, 6 September 2017
Police said traffic lights aren't working between Ngauranga Gorge and Petone, including at the Ngauranga Interchange.The New Zealand Transport Agency said traffic lights are also out at the Johnsonville off-ramp in the gorge.
NZTA has warned motorcycles and high-sided vehicles to take extra care because of strong winds on the Rimutaka Hill.
Wellington Transport Operations Centre reported heavy traffic on the SH1 Tawa to Johnsonville route and SH1 Johnsonville to Ngauranga Interchange.
