A storm the size of Australia? Crikey!

According to the latest news - http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4132085/Massive-storm-heading-for-New-Zealand - a storm the size of Australia will be lurking 1000km south of New Zealand, the edges of which will bring some remarkably foul weather our way.

See also - http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4134305/Wind-rain-bitter-cold-to-hit

The MetService has issued a Severe Weather Warning for a good chunk of the country - Wellington included.

Northwesterlies are expected to rise to gale overnight, and severe gale about Wellington, Wairarapa & Marlborough Sounds tomorrow morning, with gusts of 120kph. Winds that strong can lift roofs, topple trees and powerlines, and make driving dangerous, especially if you are on a motorbike, or driving a high-sided vehicle.

It'll be raining too, and also likely to be bitterly cold (many places are expecting snow to low levels), so keep an eye on vulnerable farm stock if you have them.

With all the rain we've had lately I'd expect a few slips around the place, so if you come across one that is causing problems, or surface flooding, don't hesitate to ring the council - 04-237-5089 (24hrs)

Take care out there!

Doing our bit

A team of three Porirua City Council building inspectors have been dispatched to assist in assessing the many damaged buildings in Canterbury over the next few days. We also have three staff assisting at the National Crisis Management Centre under the Beehive this week.

And our waterworks and drainage team remain on standby to be deployed if required.

Good luck to the guys & gals heading down, I'm sure your skills will be much appreciated - even if your assessments of the buildings possibly won't be liked much by the owners!

Animated aftershock map

Someone posted a link to a rather awesome animated map of the aftershocks of the Darfield quake - it's a bit like watching fireworks. http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/

The bigger circles represent bigger quakes, and the different colours indicate the focal depth of each aftershock.

Local quakes

What I thought were yet more notifications of aftershocks in Canterbury, were actually notifications of quakes near Wellington! One at 15:48 & one at 16:18. I didn't feel a thing. Don't forget to fill in a Felt Report if you noticed them.


The following earthquake has been recorded by GNS:
Reference number: 3368099/G
Universal Time: 2010/09/07 03:48:42
Local time (NZST): 03:48 PM on Tuesday 07 September 2010
Latitude, Longitude: 41.35S, 174.54E
NZ Map Grid (E, N): 2639000, 5983000
NZ Trans Merc (E, N): 1729000, 5421000
Location: 20 km west of Wellington
Focal depth: 40
Magnitude: 4.0
Web page: http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/3368099g.html

The following earthquake has been recorded by GNS:
Reference number: 3368110/G
Universal Time: 2010/09/07 04:18:56
Local time (NZST): 04:18 PM on Tuesday 07 September 2010
Latitude, Longitude: 41.36S, 174.54E
NZ Map Grid (E, N): 2639000, 5982000
NZ Trans Merc (E, N): 1729000, 5421000
Location: 20 km south-west of Wellington
Focal depth: 40
Magnitude: 3.8
Web page: http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/3368110g.html

Aftershocks & aid

While many of my friends in Christchurch are doing okay, the most common complaint is the nervousness that the aftershocks cause - the constant fear that it's going to be another "big one", and that it's not over yet, and the repeated surges of adrenaline aren't doing wonders for anyone's stress levels.

Mind you, some of them are taking a much lighter approach to the shakes, and playing "let's guess the magnitude".

The litany of aftershocks is quite sobering - many of these could be considered significant quakes on their own - they pretty much aren't bothering to list the ones under magnitude 3.2
http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html

Local emergency management staff have been assisting at the National Crisis Management Centre under the Beehive, and Porirua City Council has offered the support of drainage and waterworks crews, and building inspectors equipped with some vehicles & equipment, as well as some relief staff for incident management teams, but for now there have been no requests for our aid. We remain ready & willing to help - after all, we may need the favour returned some day.

Flooding in the region

While Canterbury keeps shaking in seemingly endless aftershocks, here in the Wellington region we've been dealing with the weather instead - with heavy rain in the Tararuas bring the Hutt River well up - http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4098921/Hutt-River-flood-fears-ease, and also causing flooding in Wairarapa, and in Horowhenua (where a boil water notice has been issued) - http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4098940/Flooding-cuts-road-links. High winds have also been a problem in the past couple of days, with winds gusting to 140kph in the Rimutakas, blowing over an ambulance which was attending to a van than had been blown over by the winds.

Severe weather

Back to a computer again.

In case you'd been too busy keeping up on the current events in Canterbury to notice that it's been awfully windy outside, we have a Severe Weather Warning in place for severe gales in the south of the North Island, and also a heavy rain warning for 150mm of rain for the Tararuas.

Drive carefully - take extra care if you are going over the Rimutakas, they've been getting gusts up to 14okph.

The wind and rain in Canterbury isn't going to help the clean up efforts at all, and heavy rain in the headwaters of the Waimakariri River may cause flooding due to breaches in the stopbanks caused by the recent quake.

Christchurch quake - 7.4!

(Latest edit @ 0915 - I'm not going to be near a computer again until tomorrow, so keep up with the latest info on National Radio and the rest of the internet will provide.)

I've just received notification of a magnitude 7.4 (revised to 7.1) quake centred 30km west of Christchurch, and 33km down, and Facebook updates from friends down there are indicating things like power outages (someone is reporting transformers blowing, and power is out in most of rural Canterbury), and broken pipes (including sewer & water mains), cracked swimming pools, things thrown off shelves, toppled furniture, chimneys and walls down, structural damage, and aftershocks keep happening.

Reports that people had self-evacuated from shoreside suburbs in case of tsunami - which is exactly what we tell people to do in a large local quake. Fortunately with the quake being centred on land, it doesn't appear to have generated any - but you don't know that at the time, and you shouldn't wait around to find out.

Some images appearing online of damage to unreinforced masonry & shop facades, and the entire brick side of someone's house, many streets are blocked by debris, and some roads have been damaged by ground spreading, probably due to liquefaction. The airport is currently closed while they check the runways, same for South Island rail until the lines are checked.

Minor injuries are now being reported - I'd guess a good number will be people cutting their feet on broken glass or china as they tried to find a torch in the dark.

Updates to Facebook & Twitter from people's mobile phones are a useful source of information - and a good way of finding that your friends are okay!

http://www.weather.gov/ptwc/text.php?id=pacific.2010.09.03.164512 - The first notification I received was a text forwarding the PTWC tsunami bulletin at about , saying that there was no tsunami threat - didn't feel the quake at all. I only get a text for that if NZ is involved, so I revved up the laptop to find out the story, and the Geonet report came in shortly after.

http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/3366146g.html

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4094986/Massive-7-4-quake-hits-South-Island

0710 - Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker giving a textbook perfect interview on National Radio - good factual information & key messages. Was also good to hear the Sting played earlier, followed by official emergency messages.

Major damage to the sewerage network, so people are advised to not flush their toilets, even if they still have water.

Severe Thunderstorm Watch - EDIT - lifted

EDIT: 18:62 - The watch has been lifted for Wellington...


A Severe Thunderstorm Watch has been issued for the Wellington, Wairarapa & Marlborough

Note the short time frame.

Valid until 07:00 pm Friday 03 September 2010

A very squally southerly change is expected to sweep over Wellington, southern Wairarapa and the Marlborough Sounds about 5pm. Winds are forecast to rise to gale and gusts could reach 110km/hr in exposed places with the southerly change before easing duriing the evening.

Wind gusts of this strength can cause some structural damage, including trees and power lines, and may make driving hazardous.

This watch will be updated by: 06:30 pm Friday 03 September 2010

I will be away from a computer around that time, so to keep up with the weather this evening, check out http://www.metservice.com/ , or if you have a mobile with the web m.metservice.com

Wind, rain & possibly snow?

The first day of Spring provided us with absolutely gorgeous weather, and now it all turns to custard again in time for the weekend, with the lovely weather cruelly snatched away by Winter.

We currently have a Severe Weather Watch for northerly gales for this afternoon, and some rain on the way (I can see a rapidly approaching band on the rain radar) and the forecast for tomorrow brings news of a southerly change and possible snow on the Rimutaka Road overnight and the following morning (brrr!), and then a switch back to northerlies rising to gale force norwesters for Sunday, with showers pretty much all the way through.

Might have to stick to the indoor spring cleaning this weekend.