{"id":353912,"date":"2026-03-29T16:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/353912\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T16:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:46:08","slug":"weather-burst-of-heavy-rain-for-north-island-thunderstorms-downpours-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/353912\/","title":{"rendered":"Weather: Burst of heavy rain for North Island; thunderstorms, downpours possible"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"jcUtdRSv\" style=\"display:none\">A heavy rain watch is in place for Waikato, Waitomo, Taumarunui and Taup\u014d until 8am.<\/p>\n<p class=\"jcUtdRSv\" style=\"display:none\">Bakker said heavy rain was classified as 6mm\/h, while localised downpours can be 25-35mm\/h.<\/p>\n<p class=\"jcUtdRSv\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThat\u2019s torrential rain, but they tend to only happen for brief periods at a time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"jcUtdRSv\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cIt will be 10 minutes of absolute hammering and then not so bad for the rest of the hour.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"jcUtdRSv\" style=\"display:none\">Niwa Weather predicted the worst of the rain would have eased for Auckland by this morning.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A band of heavy rain with embedded thunderstorms will move across the North Island tonight. In Auckland, the heaviest rain is expected overnight, easing around the morning commute. <\/p>\n<p>For Hawke\u2019s Bay and Gisborne, the rain arrive later, with conditions clearing by midday. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dw7Hl2rqJ1\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/dw7Hl2rqJ1<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NIWA Weather (@NiwaWeather) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NiwaWeather\/status\/2038068870796517461?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">March 29, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"jcUtdRSv\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cFor Hawke\u2019s Bay and Gisborne, the rain arrives later, with conditions clearing by midday.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"jcUtdRSv\" style=\"display:none\">This comes after a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/bay-of-plenty-times\/news\/weather-live-updates-evacuations-flooding-and-road-closures-in-northland-as-storm-moves-south\/JMCZG26R6FH4HHXMXVQJCRMO74\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/bay-of-plenty-times\/news\/weather-live-updates-evacuations-flooding-and-road-closures-in-northland-as-storm-moves-south\/JMCZG26R6FH4HHXMXVQJCRMO74\/\">week of extreme downpours and strong winds<\/a> that wreaked havoc across the country, causing evacuations and leaving thousands without power. <\/p>\n<p class=\"jcUtdRSv\" style=\"display:none\">Areas like Kait\u0101ia and Kerikeri <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/weather-march-storm-dumps-months-worth-of-rain-in-days-winds-top-140kmh\/ZMDLYHUDBJGR7FFQDPFHOIHOWM\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/weather-march-storm-dumps-months-worth-of-rain-in-days-winds-top-140kmh\/ZMDLYHUDBJGR7FFQDPFHOIHOWM\/\">recorded more than one month\u2019s rainfall<\/a> in just a few days. <\/p>\n<p class=\"jcUtdRSv\" style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/the-daily-h-your-fast-smart-guide-to-the-days-biggest-headlines\/VQR5CULLQRECZP2ORSWPGDORBU\/?utm_source=nzherald&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_id=nz_cta\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/the-daily-h-your-fast-smart-guide-to-the-days-biggest-headlines\/VQR5CULLQRECZP2ORSWPGDORBU\/?utm_source=nzherald&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_id=nz_cta\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A heavy rain watch is in place for Waikato, Waitomo, Taumarunui and Taup\u014d until 8am. Bakker said heavy&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,22509,2836,13982,4731,29815,2245,2082,6559,296,2514,7494,3234,1304,111,43,139,529,69,1118,17398,6560,544,131,20592,4998,686,19985],"class_list":["post-353912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-areas","tag-burst","tag-continues","tag-days","tag-downpours","tag-early","tag-for","tag-heavy","tag-into","tag-island","tag-less","tag-months","tag-morning","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-north","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-possible","tag-rain","tag-some","tag-than","tag-thunderstorms","tag-weather","tag-week","tag-worth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}