Stronger winds and heavy rain are in the forecast for Sunday PM and across Monday around eastern and central parts of the country as a storm deepens in air pressure off the North Island’s east coast.

Windy weather will fan out into a number of regions, while the worst winds will mostly be around the eastern North Island (south of East Cape), the lower half of the South Island, through the Cook Strait area and as far south as about Christchurch or Banks Peninsula.

We break down the rain maps and show which areas are most affected – and due to our mountains and ranges the rainflow will be broken up for some (hence the slight differences in how each agency forecasts the rain totals, as a slight difference in airflow can have big consequences for rainfall).

Following this low yet another subtropical storm will come in behind it around Wednesday and Thursday – while it does come close to East Cape it’s still forecast to remain offshore, but may directly affect the Chatham Islands.

By Friday of this coming week high pressure will be building west of the North Island with a showery south-west flow in most regions and mainly dry weather returning to those in the east.

Keep up to date with MetService warnings and the graphs in our free WeatherWatch App.