A tropical cyclone is today leaving the tropics and will grow into a larger storm system for a time in the Tasman Sea, before falling apart on Saturday as it moves into the West Coast.

Severe weather risks are most likely in the north of both main islands, but damaging wind gusts may spread nationwide for a time in places most exposed to north-easterly winds. We bring down the latest wind and rain maps – and we do expect to fine tune this further in the coming days.

The tropical cyclone is not a named one by the Fiji Met Service but did reach tropical cyclone status yesteday according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) which globally tracks tropical cyclones.

MetService has already started issuing weather warnings and watches ahead of this storm.

Not everyone in NZ will have heavy rain and strong winds – we break down which areas also miss out on much of the wet weather.