Severe weather is expected to develop as early as Saturday in the upper North Island ahead of Cyclone Vaianu, which is expected to make landfall somewhere around Auckland to Coromandel Peninsula on Sunday daytime. The cyclone is then likely to travel through the heart of the North Island come out on the eastern coastline (maybe around Hawke’s Bay) during Sunday PM – as the storm accelerates southwards.

By Monday the storm will already be south-east of Canterbury and well offshore, as it merges with a colder low pressure zone moving into the western North Island.

We break down the stages of the tropical cyclone moving in, covering wind, rain and dangerous seas. We’ll get more detailed on wind potential on either Friday or Saturday as this needs more fine tuning – but much of the North Island is exposed to wind and rain for a time, but it’s worth noting our mountain ranges interupt both airflows and rainfall totals, so precise tracking of the centre of the storm matters in order to be able to lock this in. Most modelling is in agreement about timing, intensity and tracking – so our updates over Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be able to lock in even more detail.

Keep up to date with all official warnings and watches from MetService.

🌀The cloud fanning out from Tropical #CycloneVAIANU is starting to brush the upper North Island skies of #NewZealand (mostly as high cloud) as the storm continues to track southwards tonight.

🛰️Visible Satellite Animation: 1pm – 7pm Thursday April 9, 2026. pic.twitter.com/iyirf9XDcF

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) April 9, 2026