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Fog is causing delays at Auckland Airport, with three domestic flights cancelled and 16 more delayed. 

Domestic flights to Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Queenstown are yet to be affected by a thick fog blanketing Auckland this morning. 

Meanwhile, more thunderstorms are forecast to sweep the top of the North Island today, bringing the renewed threat of downpours and powerful wind gusts. 

A spokesperson for MetService said there is a moderate risk of thunderstorms in Northland from this morning. 

That extends down the North Island into the Auckland region early this afternoon. 

MetService says there will be a moderate risk of thunderstorms for the Coromandel Peninsula, western Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Waitomo, northern Taranaki and western Tasman this evening. 

“These thunderstorms may bring localised heavy rain with intensities of 10 to 25mm/h and strong wind gusts of 80km/h.” 

Forecaster Silvia Martino told the Herald the affected regions were expecting heavy rain in a short period of time. 

“It might be nothing, nothing, nothing and then big bursts of rain for a short time,” she said. 

“Gusts of 80-90km/h are quite a bit more than you would see every day so you might have impacts associated with that.” 

Martino pointed to fronts coming in from the northwest as the cause of the bad weather. 

“They bring down warm, moist air from the north that is more unstable than the air around us,” she said. 

“It’s easier for thunderstorms to blow up when you’ve got that warmer, moister air.” 

Looking ahead to Wednesday, a moist northwesterly flow is expected to bring fronts and possible thunderstorms to the North Island and the upper South Island. 

MetService said there is “low confidence” that the North Island, from Taranaki across the central high country to the eastern Bay of Plenty, will experience warning amounts of rain. 

The same applies to the Tararua Range, Buller, and the far west of Tasman. 

On Thursday and Friday, MetService’s severe weather outlook shows a “complex area of low pressure” is expected to lie about central New Zealand. 

“Fronts and troughs associated with this system are likely to bring significant amounts of rain to some areas, but warning amounts are unlikely.” 

5000 lightning strikes 

Today’s predicted flurry of thunderstorms will be the second in more than three days for Auckland residents. 

The city was under a thunderstorm watch between 10.30pm Sunday and 1.30am Monday. Residents woke up to more thunderstorms. 

More than 5000 lightning strikes were recorded over the upper North Island and associated offshore areas from Sunday night. Many of those strikes occurred in and around the Auckland region. 

Niwa said the lightning strikes were recorded between midnight until 7am.