A tropical depression has formed in the Solomon Sea and will drift into the Coral Sea this weekend and become a tropical cyclone.

It will deepen further early next week and brings the chance of a direct hit (or near hit) to New Caledonia.

WeatherWatch.co.nz maintains NZ still has a 60% chance of being impacted – but we won’t have details locked in for another two or three days (once the storm has actually formed). Here’s the forecast to Wednesday.