Wild New Zealand weather: Heavy rain on the way for the upper North Island

It's going to be wet and wild for parts of the upper North Island today.

Metservice this morning posted a severe weather watch for heavy rain in Auckland, Great Barrier Island, the Coromandel Peninsula and parts of Northland south of Whangarei.

The watch begins at 10am and continues until midnight.

There was also a moderate risk of thunderstorms from late morning through into the evening for Auckland, Coromandel Peninsula and southern Northland.

That included the risk of localised rainfall rates of 10 to 25mm a hour. There was a low risk of severe thunderstorms producing downpours of 25 to 40mm a hour.

A lesser risk of thunderstorms extended over the remainder of Northland and also northern Waikato, Metservice said on its website.

The wild weather was the result of a small but intense low set to move across the upper North Island today, it said.

There was a possibility rainfall accumulations in the areas under a heavy rain watch could reach short duration warning criteria, such as 70mm in 12 hours.