Rain swamped the sports field at Greerton Marist Rugby Club on Saturday. Photo/Maxine Paterson
Rain swamped the sports field at Greerton Marist Rugby Club on Saturday. Photo/Maxine Paterson
A Tauranga transfer station and street were forced to close after being flooded by the heaviest rain seen in the city in the past month.
And the city is not expected to dry out any time soon.
Maleme St and the Tauranga transfer station were flooded by heavy rain on Saturday and forced to close for several hours before reopening.
Sports fields were also swamped and some reserves became lakes.
MetService recorded more than 73mm of rain in Tauranga on Saturday, more than any other day in the past month. The second-highest rainfall in that time was just 41.8mm on May 18.
Meteorologist Brian Mercer said that at one stage on Saturday rain was falling at a peak intensity of 18mm an hour, which was "quite a significant amount".
"That was [Saturday] morning. Then overnight was more persistent with no particular intense rainfall. Although we did have a thunderstorm about 3 o'clock that could have brought some heavy falls associated with that," he said.
Mr Mercer said the rain was the result of a complex low system moving across the country, which had some warm air containing a lot of moisture.
"That's moving away to the east now but there are still some scrappy bits around."
Mr Mercer said the rain would likely make way for fog in some sheltered areas around Tauranga this morning before clearing and becoming "quite nice" with long, fine spells.
He warned of scattered showers around the region tomorrow "but you'd have to be pretty unlucky to get caught in one for any length of time".
Fog was expected in sheltered areas again tomorrow morning and showers were expected to fall in the afternoon, turning to rain at night and leading into a wet Wednesday.
The rain is expected to clear by Thursday and Friday, leaving just cloudy days for the end of the week.
