Fire crews were called out at both ends of the country overnight as a large, slow-moving trough dragged rain, wind and flooding up New Zealand, freeing a person from a shed that had blown over in the Far North and helping the occupants of a vehicle caught in floodwater on the edge of the Buller.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand was called to a property at Ahipara, on the coast southwest of Kaitāia, at about 3.17am on Monday after a small shed blew over and rolled so that its door ended up facing skyward, with a person inside. In the South Island, crews helped people out of a vehicle that had driven into floodwater on State Highway 6 north of Murchison overnight. 1News reported that nobody in the vehicle was trapped or injured, and crews left the scene once the occupants were clear.
MetService meteorologist Dom Barry said Buller, Nelson and Tasman had taken between 30 and 70 millimetres of rain since midday on Sunday, with the heaviest falls around Buller and Nelson. The rain warning covering that part of the country had expired by Monday morning, but Barry said that did not mean the weather had finished with the upper South Island.
“Just because there’s no warning out, that doesn’t mean that the rain will cease – it’s just sort of easing as the day goes on,” Barry said. “People still need to be mindful in that area in particular, where we saw the slips and whatnot yesterday.”
The wind was worst in the middle of the country. Nelson recorded a gust of 53kmh, which Barry said was unusual for the city, while gusts of 113kmh were measured in the hills above Wellington overnight. The strongest conditions ran through Wellington and Cook Strait.
“That rain is spreading north and is already impacting just about all of the North Island right now, and that’s going to continue throughout the day,” he said.
The heaviest of it landed on the Tararua Range, which RNZ reported had taken almost 100mm in 12 hours. MetService kept an orange heavy rain warning over the range until 3pm on Monday and forecast a further 80 to 120mm on top of what had already fallen, with peak rates of 15 to 20mm an hour until early in the morning. The warning said streams and rivers may rise rapidly, and that surface flooding, slips and difficult driving conditions were possible.
Heavy rain watches covered a wide slice of the lower and central North Island. Taranaki about and north of the maunga was under a watch until 10am, the Ruahine Range until 9pm, Whanganui and Manawatū north of Feilding until noon, and the south and east of Wellington along with Wairarapa away from the Tararua Range until 2pm. A strong wind watch ran from Nelson City to D’Urville Island until 11am, with southeasterlies possibly approaching severe gale in exposed places.
Behind the front the air turned colder, and MetService issued a road snowfall warning for Lewis Pass on State Highway 7 from 3am to 9am, with up to a centimetre of snow expected to settle about the summit.
Several West Coast and Buller highways were still shut on Monday morning. State Highway 6 was closed between Kawatiri and Murchison. Part of State Highway 6 at Upper Buller Gorge Road near Inangahua was closed by flooding between the intersections with Brown Creek Road and State Highway 69, with a detour available via Brown Creek Road. An earlier closure on State Highway 65 between O’Sullivans Bridge and Shenandoah had been extended to run all the way to Springs Junction, with a signposted detour in place.
Sunday had already been a rough day on the same roads. A slip at Meybille Bay closed State Highway 6 between Greymouth and Westport in the afternoon, and NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi asked people to avoid the shut section of Coast Road between Punakaiki and Fox River or to consider delaying their journeys. The agency also had reports of flooding in the Lower Buller Gorge and on parts of State Highways 7 and 65 between the Hanmer Springs turnoff and Murchison. “Treefalls have been reported on SH6 at Berlins and Inangahua Junction, and on State Highway 67 near Westport,” NZTA said, as reported by 1News. Grey District Council posted a photograph of water lying across the road in the Arnold Valley and told motorists to take care.
It is a wet way to open the first full week of spring, and forecasters have been warning for a fortnight that this sort of week may become familiar on the western side of the South Island. On 2 September, Earth Sciences New Zealand said El Niño conditions in the tropical Pacific had strengthened since mid-winter and were expected to reach the very strong category in early September, peaking as one of the strongest in recent history. Principal scientist Chris Brandolino told RNZ the pattern raised the odds of stronger winds, more frequent westerlies and wetter weather from Hokitika and Haast through to Southland, along with a heightened chance of flooding and landslips.
“If we get those events kind of occurring repeatedly, even if there’s a couple of days break … over time the environment becomes less capable of handling a big rain event,” Brandolino said. The same pattern is expected to leave eastern districts warmer and unusually dry, with a rising wildfire risk as spring goes on. We covered the declaration of this El Niño when it was made in July.
The immediate outlook is better. MetService said that by Tuesday there would be minimal risk of severe weather, with the complex low moving away to the east of New Zealand as a ridge of high pressure builds over the country and a weak front decays over the south. Strong winds are possible again in the southernmost parts of the country by the end of the working week.
Anyone travelling through the Buller, the West Coast or the South Island passes should check the NZTA journey planner before setting out, because closures there have been changing hour by hour.
Did the storm reach you overnight, and how are the roads where you live? Leave a comment below and tell us what you are seeing.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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