We can handle it

So we have this weather warning for severe gales & probably some heavy rain. Some very similar weather happened on Monday too. It caused a few problems here & there - http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3490778/Gale-force-winds-cause-havoc - but in the grand scheme of things, not all that bad.

Compare that with what happened in Perth recently - http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/3497715/Perth-cleans-up-after-freak-storm. Sounds much more exciting than ours, but then I saw the numbers - "The Meteorological Service said recorded wind gusts of more than 120km/h and 35mm of rain within about eight hours on Monday." Hang on, that sounds almost like a typical day in Wellington, doesn't it?

There aren't that many places where you'll often hear the weather report of "winds easing to gale force," but Wellington is one of them. 35mm of rain in eight hours? We can have 80-100mm overnight in some events, and yet our infrastructure seems to handle it relatively well. Mind you, we don't get golf ball-sized hail very often, I can imagine that might change the game a bit.

I guess I'm just glad to be living in a city that's designed to handle some pretty impressive weather. It would be odd living somewhere that counted 120km gusts and 35mm of rain as a freak event. I like having an annual rainfall that can be measured in metres.