Tauranga's first rain since the New Year festivities is not going to be enough to make farmers happy, but it might be enough to keep people off the beaches.

'I don't think we are going to get a huge amount of rain,” says Metservice forecaster John Law, who is also predicting warm, muggy north easterlies.

Metservice forecaster Jon Law is predicting patchy rain this week. Photo: File.

The forecast for today is for around 6mm of rain between 4pm-8pm, but it's not going to be everywhere, and John think's there's a greater chance of rain falling inland.

'We have been so dry through the month so far I think we are going to need a lot of rain to really get the farmers back on side,” says John.

'It's going to take a while. What we are looking at is the return of the fairly humid north easterly wind which brings a fair bit more cloud and I think what we are also going to find is it brings a bit more wetter weather towards Tauranga.”

So far this year, Tauranga has had 12mm of rain, with most of that falling overnight early on New Year's Day. There was another five millimetres or so on January 9, but it's been dry since then.

But while cloudy weather and patchy rain is predicted, John isn't expecting the kind of downpour farmers were hoping for.

The driver is an ex-subtropical low off East Cape, which is supplying large quantities of moist warm air.

'The origin of that low pressure system is up in the tropics,” says John, 'so we have got some pretty warm air around that, and the warmer the air, the more moisture it can contain within it.

'So that's where we get the humidity from as well.

'What we have got today is afternoon showers, so it's not really that low pressure it's the convective nature of it. So there will be showers bubbling up in it and they are more likely to be a little bit further in land.

'But as we head through Thursday and Friday towards the weekend, we will probably find we are more dominated by the low pressure system.

'We are going to get some rainfall and there's going to be more cloud than anything else. It's going to be very warm.

'There'll be patchy little bits of rain here and there, depending on where you are. Up in the hills, towards the Kaimais, might see more than other places.”

There could also be some rain next week as a weather system from the south and west crosses the country.