A small but rain bearing sub-tropical low is slowly drifting towards New Zealand today and may well spark rain warnings in the north west of both islands this weekend expects WeatherWatch.co.nz.

The low – which is weakening as it comes south – is arriving at the same time as a large high (that has brought the sunnier, calmer end to the week) departs to our east.

But the fizzling out of this low doesn’t mean the rain will be short lived.  In fact, behind this low is a pool of very humid, tropical air that is being pulled southwards towards New Zealand.

Next week a new low will form off the the New South Wales coast and drift across the now humid Tasman Sea region – and is likely to feed northerlies with high humidity across the country – and plenty more rain for the north and west especially, before crossing the country and bringing a burst of rain to the east.

MetService has this afternoon said they have moderate confidence of rain warnings being issued in Northland, Mt Taranaki, north west Nelson and Westland.

They have low confidence for surrounding regions such as Coromandel Peninsula, Bay of Plenty, eastern Taranaki, the entire Nelson region and more of the West Coast.

WeatherWatch.co.nz says the rain won’t be widespread but will have large areas of heavy rain – with lighter drizzly rain stretching to other places.

We’ll be monitoring it all across the weekend and into next week.

The humid weather is expected to arrive in the north this weekend and spread south on Monday.

Humid conditions aren’t predicted to ease until next weekend at this stage.

– WeatherWatch.co.nz