A cold front bringing heavy downpours to parts of Auckland is set to stall over the city this afternoon, with one area in line for over 20mm an hour of rain.

MetService is predicting 22mm of rain in New Lynn at 3pm, up nearly 12mm from 10.3mm at 2pm.

Meteorologist Juliana Bergdolt told the Herald Auckland residents would be seeing “quite a bit” of rain until later tonight as the front moved toward the northeast.

“Looking at the radar and the model, it looks like the heaviest rain is going to be just about now, say in the next three hours.”

Bergdolt said anything above 6mm of rain an hour was considered heavy rain.

Because the front was coming in from the west, she said western areas will be more exposed to the conditions but eastern suburbs will still feel the impact.

“Auckland isn’t particularly wide, you don’t have a really large range or something to protect the eastern areas.”

Bergdolt said the heavy rain was expected to ease around 5pm or 6pm tonight.

“You might still see a couple of showers overnight but nothing like what you’ve seen this afternoon.”

Monday could bring thunderstorms and heavy rain, but these should turn to isolated showers and fine breaks in the evening. Northwesterly winds will turn to strong westerlies in the afternoon, while the top temperature should hit 25C.

Elsewhere, the storm was expected to bring a dramatic fall in temperatures, snow, and more thunderstorms, gales, rain and hail.

Heavy rain watches were in place for the ranges of the Westland District, Fiordland north of Doubtful Sound and the Otago headwaters from 10pm Sunday at the earliest, lasting until midday Monday at the latest.

Strong wind watches were issued for the Canterbury High Country, Central Otago - including the Queenstown Lakes District - and Fiordland and Southland from Mataura northwards set to begin at 9pm Sunday and end at 9am Monday.

MetService said on social media: “Severe weather watches may be upgraded to warnings and areas further north are likely to be added in the coming days. Keep an eye on our severe weather pages for updates.”

The national forecaster said an intense trough of low pressure was bringing in the storm. A cold southwesterly flow then follows, embedded with thunderstorms, MetService said.

With it, severe gales were also expected in Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Wellington, Taranaki, Waikato, Manawatū, Marlborough and Nelson. Heavy falls were also tipped for the West Coast, Taranaki, Waikato, Manawatū and western parts of the Bay of Plenty.