A soggy weekend

While Poriua had a few centimetres of nice drenching rain to soak into the soil over the weekend, other parts of the North Island had a bit more than they really wanted, with up to 30cm (that's a whole foot!) of rain falling over the weekend.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4576045/Mop-up-begins-after-deluge - check out some of the photos - especially some of the ones from Auckland, where an extra high tide and heavy rain brought the ocean right to peoples' doorsteps

I had friends evacuated from their campsite in Taupo, and then they had drive the long way home again as the Desert Road was forced to close.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/national/4572485/Wet-wet-wet-but-worst-weather-over

Going troppo

It's been pretty windy lately, with the winds fanning the flames at several large scrub fires around the region.

And the weather is about to take another turn for the worse with the expected impact of the remains of Tropical Cyclone Vania, and Tropical Cyclone Zelia. They won't officially be cyclones by the time they get to us, but they are forecast to bring very humid conditions and a period of heavy rain and north to northwest gales over northern and central New Zealand from mid/late Tuesday morning until Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.

Here we can expect 70-100mm of rain in the 18 hours from 10am on Tuesday, and 150mm up in the Tararuas.

It should reduce the fire danger a bit, but you have to worry about rapidly rising rivers & streams, and surface flooding instead.

And the wind may be gusting to 120km/h, so make sure you secure loose objects around your home (rubbish bins, trampolines etc), and take care while driving tomorrow night.


http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/south-pacific/4548138/Cyclone-still-tracking-towards-New-Zealand

Bad weather for the weekend

The MetService has issued a Severe Weather Watch for the Wellington & Wairarapa areas for strong northwest winds from late Saturday through to Sunday afternoon, and there's likely to be a bit of rain associated with that.

Keep an eye on the weather forecasts and plan accordingly.

Go team!

A number of Kiwi volunteers are over in Australia helping out with the floods, including several from Hutt City, a couple from Wellington, and a colleague from HVEMO. They should bring back some useful information from their experiences, though we tend not to have to deal with snakes in our floodwaters around here!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4525570/Kiwi-team-in-Queensland-flood-zone

Busy holidays

The holiday period had a bit going on emergency-wise!

Boxing Day started early with a 3am wake-up call from the National Warning System, letting us know that the quake in in Vanuatu wasn't going to cause us any tsunami problems (I hope everyone in Vanatu came out of it all right!)

Later that day Canterbury had a rather rude series of aftershocks which caused more damage to properties, and gave some people a hell of a fright while they were making the most of the Boxing Day sales.

A couple of days later things got a bit breezy... The Rimutaka Hill road was closed for several hours as winds gusted over 150km/h, and Wellington recorded 172km/hr! There were roofs lifting, trees & power lines down, and more than a couple of probably brand-new trampolines being blown into buildings.

Much of the rest of the country received more rainfall than they really wanted in such a short time, with many rivers flooding - http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/4500399/Flooding-worst-in-150-years, and campers being forced to abandon their tents to rising waters.

Don't forget to ask for help if you need it - we generally don't know if something is wrong unless someone actually tells us! http://www.stuff.co.nz/marlborough-express/news/4505316/No-call-to-Civil-Defence. Ring 111, ring your council, let people know when there is a problem!