Most of the North Island is to be hammered by rain and wind tonight as days of stormy weather hit.
MetService is warning it will also be a wet and windy few days for the top of the South Island as a front moves in.
Northland will bear the brunt of it with a heavy rain watch in place for the area until 7am tomorrow.
The biggest soaking will be overnight with localised downpours of 25 to 40mm/h likely for one or two hours in Northland and large downpours in Auckland just before dawn tomorrow.
"The heaviest most intense rain is probably going to fall over a relatively short one- to two-hour period as that front moves over," MetService duty forecaster Stephen Glassey said.
"For the North Island and the top of the South Island tomorrow is going to be a wet day. We've got mostly fine weather over the bottom of the South Island."
The rain will hit Coromandel and the Bay of Plenty tomorrow morning.
There are also heavy rain warnings for Tasman, west of Motueka, Mt Taranaki and heavy rain watches are in place for Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Richmond, Gisborne from early tomorrow.
Along with rain, heavy wind is also possible in Northland and Auckland including Great Barrier Island, coastal Gisborne, coastal Bay of Plenty, Taranaki, Taihape and northern parts of Whanganui from late tonight through until tomorrow.
The heavy showers gradually clear away on Friday before another front moves over the country on Saturday and into the weekend.
Most of the South Island avoids the wet weather heading for most of the country n the next few days, but it will be greeted with heavy rain on Saturday.
"The weather pattern is very spring like, quite changeable, lots of features from the Tasman Sea moving across New Zealand."
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