Heavy rain to ease in northern Hawke’s Bay before returning.

Joe and Denise Hodge of Waipukurau take a drizzly walk to the first day of the Waipukurau market. Photo / Connull Lang

Hawke’s Bay’s rain will go away for the start of the week but, thanks to fickle spring weather, it will make like the nursery rhyme and come again another day.

A MetService heavy rain watch has been over the Wairoa District and Gisborne/Tairāwhiti for 11 hours from 9am to 8pm on Sunday.

A massive slip took out a large section of Tinorito Rd between Wairoa and Gisborne earlier in the week after rain.

MetService meteorologist Alwyn Bakker said it looked like the rain would stick around in the form of showers on Monday morning for northern parts of Hawke’s Bay like the Wairoa District, but Napier southwards will enjoy drier conditions slightly earlier.

“It will be cloudy overnight and then clearing up early [on Monday],” Bakker said.

“It’s just hanging on for a little bit longer around there, but it should be nice for everybody by the afternoon.”

He said the fine conditions were not expected to last long.

“Unfortunately, it is that treacherously changeable spring weather, so it’ll start off nice on Tuesday, but then we are looking to get a bit more rain hanging on after Wednesday and then clearing out again,” he said.

“I’d advise people to keep checking back to the forecast on a daily basis to see what is going on.”

He said they expected Wednesday’s rain to be widespread at this stage, but not as intense as the rain in the Wairoa District.

He said it looked like Hawke’s Bay’s temperatures were likely to improve back to around average going from Sunday to Monday.

“We are looking at a high of 18C for Napier and Hastings, a low of 9C. It warms up a little bit on Tuesday - we are looking at 21C for Napier and 20C for Hastings, with the same overnight temperatures as the previous night,” he said.

“But then getting on to Wednesday, it is a little less nice, looking at 17C across the board there.”

The Tahekenui Stream at Glenstrae monitoring station, situated just south of Wairoa, saw the most rainfall out of the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council’s monitoring stations on Sunday, with 31.5 millimetres of rain measured as of 12.30pm.

The Keirunga rainfall monitoring station, south of Hastings, saw the most rainfall out of the regional council’s monitoring stations on Saturday, with 32.5mm of rainfall measured throughout the day.