Pot holes forming in roads and surface flooding plagued Tauranga overnight as rain pummelled the city.

From 6pm to midnight, 36mm of rain fell. That's on top of the 79mm that fell in the hours leading up to 6pm.

A SunLive reader says police had blocked of SH29A near Baypark due to pot holes in the road.

MetService meteorologist Tui McInness says the rain sort of stopped just after midnight.

'There has been a few periods, especially through the evening, where were have recorded 18mm at the Tauranga Airport, which is quite impressive.

'It was up to 9pm we recorded the 18mm, which is a hefty amount.”

Looking ahead, today is expected to be fine.

Tui says the day will be drier but there will still be that cloudy feeling in the morning and evening.

'Tomorrow afternoon, Tauranga could be in for a few showers. That's just another system sitting in the Tasman at the moment.

'It will move towards New Zealand and will bring rain. But that's an overnight thing.”

Tui says things will get messy again around Thursday.

'Thursday at the moment looks like it could be wet. It could also be drier.”

Being three days out, Tui says it's hard to predict what the weather system will do, but the MetService is leaning towards it being a bit of a wet day in the Bay.

Showers are expected to linger around Tauranga until about Sunday, when the sun should push the rain out of the Bay.

'It's going to feel probably muggy and damp on Thursday and things should improve at the end of the weekend.”

Large rainfall totals in #BayofPlenty yesterday: 18.2 mm recorded in just 1 hr in #Tauranga! Historical data: https://t.co/MZxHKksT1v ^CF pic.twitter.com/W8sZ6ayp3j

— MetService (@MetService) August 28, 2017