1 Metre Of Rain In Just A Few Days

[J07]

This is high for a non-tropical country.

Including 476mm in one day, and 837mm over two of the days.

http://www.wcrc.govt.nz/river_level_rainfa...ata_summary.htm

None of these are records, but they are high.

The current NZ record for 24 hour rainfall is 682mm and for 48 hours it is 1049mm. By contrast, the highest ever UK 24 hour rainfall is a mere 279 mm.

[Andy Bown]

Goodness me that's a lot of rain !

Did it cause flooding/damage or is the weather station in a remote area?

[❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️]

Wow, cant imagine that amount of rain falling.

1000mm of rain would be a wet year!

[sunny scunny]

Wow thats an incredible amount of rain :lol:

[Lewis]

Vast amount of rainfall there.. suprised theres no mass flooding. Then again due to the timeframe it's fallen + non saturated ground people can consider themselves very lucky.

[J07]

There was flooding in some towns. That particular station I think is quite remote. Probably it's in the hill country tucked into the ranges. Rain at that station is more of an issue with the huge volumes of water it adds to the rivers, and also to the odd hunter or tramper. New Zealand rivers rise very quickly, but also fall very quickly, because the catchment areas are so steep.

It's a narrow coastal strip, where in about 20-30 miles the land rises from the sea to as high as 3800 metres, hence massive orographic precipitation and very steep river catchments. People are concentrated into a few towns. The region is slightly bigger than Wales, but with 1% of the population.

Whilst all this rain was coming down, 80 miles away to the east it was sunny with temperatures reaching 27C.

[J07]

I should have saved the surface chart for this event, but from memory it looks very similar to what has hit the UK in recent days with a strong, warm and very moist flow benefiting from orographic lift. They also happened at pretty much the same time of year (SSTs relatively high).

[J07]

One of those stations had 400 mm yesterday.

[J07]

Again, almost an identical situation, almost exactly a year later! Cropp River had 1250 mm of rain in 5 days.

[Guest]

Again, almost an identical situation, almost exactly a year later! Cropp River had 1250 mm of rain in 5 days.

It sounds like it could be a common occurence then? How long have the stations been there?

Still a shed load of water to come down though

[Pennine Ten Foot Drifts]

Again, almost an identical situation, almost exactly a year later! Cropp River had 1250 mm of rain in 5 days.

Slight tangent, but does NZ generate much of it's electricity from hydro-electric generation ?

[Guest]

Slight tangent, but does NZ generate much of it's electricity from hydro-electric generation ?

I suspect that even with the largest reservoirs they wouldn't be able to hold all that water. I'm also fairly sure that hydro-electric works best in countries with consistent rainfall spread across the year so I'm not sure how this affects NZ.

[J07]

Not sure how long the stations have been there but it's at least 15 years. I wouldn't say it's "common" but it's also not all that unusual.

The Cropp River gauge once had 17,000 mm of rain in a calendar year, and 3000 mm in a calendar month.

As for hydro generation - 52% of NZ's electricity comes from hydroelectricity. There is of course no nuclear generation allowed, and 70% of the total energy comes from renewable sources.

[Optimus Prime]

You look after your country, shame the rest of us can't say the same.

[J07]

You look after your country, shame the rest of us can't say the same.

Still there are environmental problems. Effluent in rivers. 1080. And Hydro is not that great for the pre-existing environment....and when you have to spill the Lakes due to excessive rain......not good for downstream valleys.