Heavy rain and gale winds will slowly move down the country over the next 24 to 36 hours a subtropical storm powers up in the Tasman Sea.

Heaviest rain looks to be in the upper North Island, the north-west South Island and the West Coast over the next few days, with lowest totals in the east south of about Gisborne.

The strong winds, mostly north-easterly to begin with, have already started to build in the upper North Island and peak in strength in most places during Thursday. Then those gusty conditions move down the South Island, especially for eastern areas like Banks Peninsula and Otago Peninsula.

While the subtropical storm is getting stronger today and into Thursday, it will weaken on Friday slowly.

We track the wind, the rain and the air pressure systems, plus another low coming in from Australia on Sunday and Monday (which falls apart as it moves in here).

FRIDAY’S MISSING MAP:
The Friday rainfall map was included after this video was recorded, we apologise for the glitch. You can find our cummulative rainfall maps here to make more sense of it: https://www.weatherwatch.co.nz/maps-radars/rain/cumulative-rainfall