{"id":365760,"date":"2026-04-06T04:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T04:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/365760\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T04:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T04:15:08","slug":"subtropical-low-and-cyclone-threat-heavy-rain-warnings-for-north-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/365760\/","title":{"rendered":"Subtropical low and cyclone threat: Heavy rain warnings for North Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

MetService meteorologist Alec Holden told the Herald the subtropical low is attached to an older low.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy their powers combined, they are still making little headway, mainly because there is a very large high-pressure system to the southeast of the country that is slowing both of their movements down,\u201d Holden said. <\/p>\n

However, he said conditions are expected to change because the subtropical low and its associated fronts are forecast to move over much of the country from tomorrow. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis subtropical feature [is] just funnelling all this water straight from somewhere not far off of Vanuatu and then bringing that down over New Zealand and just wringing it out like a sponge,\u201d Holden said. <\/p>\n

\"PeriodsPeriods of heavy rain are expected for the upper North Island and the upper South Island. Photo \/ MetService<\/p>\n

Severe weather watches and warnings <\/p>\n

An orange heavy rain warning is in place for Northland<\/a> from 10pm tonight until 4pm tomorrow. <\/p>\n

A heavy rain watch is in place for Auckland and Great Barrier Island from 9am tomorrow until 9pm.<\/p>\n

MetService said this rain will mainly affect north of Papakura.<\/p>\n

Holden said Auckland will experience the worst of the rain from mid-morning to late afternoon tomorrow. <\/p>\n

The Coromandel Peninsula is under the same watch from noon tomorrow until 3am Wednesday. <\/p>\n

The Bay of Plenty west of Whakat\u0101ne, including Rotorua, is under the same watch from 3pm tomorrow until 6pm Wednesday. <\/p>\n

A heavy rain watch is also in place for the Bay of Plenty about and east of Whakat\u0101ne, from 3pm Wednesday to 9am Thursday. <\/p>\n

Tasman, northwest of Motueka, is also under a heavy rain watch from 9pm tomorrow until 6am Wednesday. <\/p>\n

MetService has issued a strong wind watch for Northland from 3am tomorrow until 4pm. <\/p>\n

These warnings come after the Northland region recently suffered widespread flooding, with settlements in Whang\u0101rei and the Far North cut off and more than 80 homes damaged<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both districts declared states of emergency<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Two active tropical cyclones <\/p>\n

MetService said it is tracking two tropical cyclones in Pacific waters.<\/p>\n

A \u201csevere\u201d category 3 tropical cyclone named Maila is currently slow-moving in the Solomon Sea.<\/p>\n

Another category 2 tropical cyclone named Vaianu is currently located about 600km northwest of Nadi in Fiji.<\/p>\n

Holden said MetService has been keeping an \u201cextremely close\u201d eye on them, especially Vaianu. <\/p>\n

\"CycloneCyclone Vaianu and Cyclone Maila. Photo \/ Himawari-8<\/p>\n

\u201cThat one is in an area where it could theoretically come and take a New Zealand holiday. However, it\u2019s still at this point far too early to say anything with particular confidence,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Holden said the models have been \u201cextremely jumpy\u201d in terms of where the cyclones are predicted to end up. <\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, fingers crossed, it\u2019ll sail far out to the east of us and give Bay of Plenty maybe a bit of a rain tickle,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MetService meteorologist Alec Holden told the Herald the subtropical low is attached to an older low. \u201cBy their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50374,95,33959,19555,2082,54171,71,6559,2514,17576,111,43,139,529,69,36200,6560,18835,61683,1961,1555,12419,26671,19030,31866,33210,6123,18980,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-365760","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-active","9":"tag-and","10":"tag-cyclone","11":"tag-evening","12":"tag-for","13":"tag-forecasters","14":"tag-from","15":"tag-heavy","16":"tag-island","17":"tag-low","18":"tag-new-zealand","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-north","22":"tag-nz","23":"tag-potentially","24":"tag-rain","25":"tag-strong","26":"tag-subtropical","27":"tag-this","28":"tag-threat","29":"tag-threatening","30":"tag-tracking","31":"tag-tropical","32":"tag-unleash","33":"tag-warnings","34":"tag-while","35":"tag-winds","36":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365760","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=365760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}