Wet and wild start to week for north

The annual Taste of Auckland festival at Western Springs was forced to close early on Saturday due to severe wind gusts. Photo / Chris Loufte

Auckland is in for a wet and windy start to the week, with heavy rain, gales and possible thunderstorms forecast for today.

The city was plagued by bad weather on Saturday, with high winds causing power outages to more than 18,000 homes.

The outage at a substation in the East Auckland suburb of St Johns also affected parts of Mt Wellington, Ellerslie, Remuera, Mission Bay, Glendowie and Panmure, Vector said.

Police warned motorists to be aware of rapidly changing weather conditions on Saturday after a woman lost control of her vehicle in West Auckland and struck a power pole.

And the annual Taste of Auckland festival at Western Springs was forced to close early on Saturday because of severe wind gusts. However, there was finer weather yesterday for the festival's final day.

MetService duty meteorologist David Miller said a low over the Tasman Sea would hit the country today. There was a severe weather watch for much of the North Island.

In Auckland and Northland northwesterly gales may become severe from late morning until evening.

A front was also expected to bring a brief burst of heavy rain to northern parts of the country, and heavy falls and thunderstorms were possible in Auckland and Northland this morning, MetService said.

Auckland weather was looking good for tomorrow before more showers on Wednesday.NZME.