The "beaten up old windbag" of ex-Cyclone June is sitting just north of Auckland, preparing to bring rain and strong winds to the city, the MetService says.
A few small thunderstorms have been recorded in areas such as Whangarei and Warkworth as the bad weather bears down on Auckland.
"That little cluster of persistent rain will just drift across Auckland over the next several hours, and with a clockwise flow of wind around the low," said MetService forecaster Dan Corbett, about 11.40am today.
He said a "boomerang shape" band of rain which came in on northeast winds yesterday was currently sitting over the central part of the country from Taranaki to Wellington and down to Marlborough.
When that eases away later today it will be replaced by strong southwesterly winds, which Mr Corbett described as "the sting in the tail".