New Zealand Weather

[Kiwi]

 

[Kiwi]

Vince Cocurullo Mayor of Whangarei

"6:30am update Mon 13th Feb 2023

We have had heavy rainfalls last night along with high winds. NRC Rainfall gauges have recorded over 200mm in the last 24 hours.

Metservice still have Whangarei and Northland in Red Zone for More Heavy rain and High winds, until Tuesday evening Wednesday Morning. https://www.metservice.com/maps-radar/rain/forecast/3-days"

[karyo]

I woke up at 7am with the sound of heavy rain and it is continuing up to now with no breaks. The wind is picking up too. 

The worst rain is forecast to be from late afternoon onwards and it will coincide with gale force winds. Hawkes Bay is expected to get 150mm on coastl areas with up to 400mm on the hills so some flooding is certainly likely.

This is my first ever cyclone so I am quite excited but I hope there won't be too many problems in my area and that the electricitry won't cut off.

Edited February 12, 2023 by karyo

[crimsone]

 

I’d quite like to sleep now. West Auckland isn’t fun right now.

[stodge]

Mrs Stodge's mother is in Greenmeadows, near Napier and Hastings, in the Hawkes Bay region.

First thing, she is fine - she is in a retirement village which didn't get flooded and she didn't have to evacuate. The village has no power apart from a generator at the main building which is powering the kitchen where they are working overtime to make meals and hot drinks for the residents and they have Wi-Fi.

Hopefully @Karyo is okay but the power went off across the whole of Hawkes Bay on early Tuesday morning (local). The main sub station serving Napier and Hastings is submerged and it may be several days before power is restored. This morning, authorities are saying up to a week.

Gabrielle has been an extraordinary weather event with the LP centre moving SE from just east of Cape Reinga down the coast through the Hauraki Gulf and passing to the north of the East Cape. To the south of it (remember we are in the Southern Hemisphere) very strong E'ly winds battered the east coast of the North Island and very heavy rain accompanied the gale across the east and north of North Island with the heaviest falls in Coromandel, around Gisborne and in Hawkes Bay.

There are severe thunderstorms forecast today for the Bay of Plenty as an upper level residual trough passes west to east.

Winds gusted to 130 km per hour in the far north and around 90 km per hour at Napier. I've not seen accumulated rainfall numbers but would expect 200-300mm to have fallen quite widely and perhaps up to 400mm in the Ruahine Ranges and the Esk Valley.

So far, five people are confirmed dead and there are serious concerns this figure will rise as the authorities reach areas which are currently inaccessible.

[karyo]

That was quite a wild experience! After a wild night of rain and wind i woke up to find no electricity or WiFi signal on Tuesday.  The house I was staying in thankfully didn't get damaged but there was a lot of flooding in Napier and Hastings and fallen trees. Napier still has no electricity but the flood waters a receding now. The Art Deco festival which was scheduled fir this weekend has been cancelled, this is a huge economic loss for the city.

Thankfully, the airport is not affected so I am leaving for Melbourne today.

Something I have to highlight is how well local people are dealing with this disaster. I queued at the local supermarket for an hour on Tuesday and despite the mile long queue nobody was agitated or disorderly. People were chatting to each other and keeping the spirits reasonably high. Also, with no traffic lights in operation, the traffic on the roads appears to work fine with drivers being curtious and letting other cars in the traffic. 

[stodge]

Mrs Stodge's mother got her power back after six days last Monday.

The disaster has left a deluge of silt covering the land including the valuable agricultural soil. Unfortunately, eleven people are confirmed dead with eight still missing.

Roads remain closed and bridges remain down cutting off access to many areas but it's improving slowly.

Looking at the latest GFS it seems the next cyclones forming off New Caledonia and Vanuatu will stay to the north of the North Island but that doesn't mean no impact from wind and rain.