Whip out your raincoats, heavy rain for the region today

Get your raincoats, but maybe not your umbrella with heavy rain and strong winds expected around the region today.

Heavy rain is expected across the region, easing to showers this morning, with strong northerlies easing to lighter westerly winds.

As of 6.30am, 1.6mm of rain had fallen in the Kaimais, 1.2mm in Galatea, and 0.6mm in Rotorua.

Tauranga will have showers and strong northerly winds today which will change to lighter westerlies this morning.

Tomorrow, Tauranga and Rotorua can expect to be partly cloudy with a few showers and light winds.