Cyclone Vaianu will cross the North Island rapidly on Sunday, making landfall somewhere around Auckland to Coromandel Peninsula during the middle of the day. Just 24 hours after that, the storm is likely to be centred south-east of Dunedin, travelling roughly the length of New Zealand in just a day.

The fast movement limits how long damaging winds can linger, and how long heavy rain falls. Some regions may have a burst of wind and rain lasting only a few hours, others may have wind and/or rain lingering for 12 to 18 hours.

Vaianu will also change shape as it moves over the North Island on Sunday PM and early Monday AM as it accelerates southwards, this alters wind and rain and how that all interacts with our mountains and ranges and makes for many moving parts, especially as winds swing around to the opposite direction behind the storm later on Sunday. So forecasts will likely change, as might some of the warnings.

Please note: The MetService warning map we show at the end of the video was updated as we were publishing this on YouTube and now shows red and orange warnings. Click here for the live map of warnings and watches: www.weatherwatch.co.nz/maps-radars/warnings/metservice

Our next video update will be on Saturday afternoon.