A slow moving 'complex low' is set to bring heavy rain to much of North Island.
MetService today issued orange heavy rain warnings for the East Coast, including Coromandel Peninsula, adding to already issued heavy rain watches for Auckland and Northland.
"For the North Island, there is high confidence of heavy rain for Tairawhiti/Gisborne early Saturday and moderate confidence for Hawke's Bay in the north and about the ranges," MetService said.
"For the South Island, there is low confidence of rainfall amounts reaching warning criteria for the southeast of Marlborough on Saturday and for North Otago and Dunedin on Sunday and early Monday.
"In addition, there is low confidence of severe southeast gales for eastern Bay of Plenty early Saturday."
The bad weather will set in for Auckland during the kick-off of the FIFA Women's World Cup tonight.
The forecast for Auckland and Great Barrier Island has "a period of heavy rain, with possible localised downpours of 25 to 40 mm/h" arriving from 8pm tonight.
The rain is expected to last until Friday afternoon.
Northland is under a similar rain watch which begins at 2pm this afternoon and lasts until midnight tonight.
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