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.

Metservice meteorologist Tui McInnes said the effects of the low would linger through tomorrow and into Monday, with widespread wet weather, but there would be a big improvement by Waitangi Day.

While there would be some isolated showers in inland areas of the country, most would enjoy a dry day.

"It will feel a lot nicer to a lot of people."

Waitangi itself would be partly cloudy with the possibility of the odd shower. A temperature of 26C is expected.

The weather will be similar in our biggest city, with only a 1C drop in temperature, with a high of 25C expected in Auckland on Waitangi Day.

The highs reflected a country-wide dip in temperatures to the early to mid-20s this week, after a hot January.

The cool change may feel autumnal to some, but settled and warm weather looks to be making a return next week, McInnes said.

"It looks like we enter a period of warmer than average temperatures."