Not again? Cyclone forecast a year on from calamitous 2022 storms

Flooding in Napier suburb Mārewa on February 7 last year, the city's heaviest rain since the devastating floods of November 2020. Photo / NZME

Hawke’s Bay is unlikely to see any significant impact from the brewing Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle before Tuesday, according to national weather agency MetService.

But some areas are on tenterhooks, with the potential storm’s approach coming about the anniversary of the climatic turn of 2022, when Napier went from temperatures over 33C on February 4 to the city’s heaviest 24-hour rainfall in 15 months just three days later.

That caused a degree of calamity and well over $25 million worth of damage to roads in the Wairoa region, including a significant bridge threatened with collapse.

In a severe weather “outlook” – not yet a warning – MetService said on Thursday the cyclone was expected to move southeastwards out of the tropics and lie north of New Zealand by late weekend.

There was “high confidence” of warning levels of rain for Northland, Auckland, Coromandel Peninsula, the northern and eastern Waikato, the Bay of Plenty and northern Gisborne from Monday to Tuesday.

There’s low confidence of warning amounts of rain in Hawke’s Bay on Monday, but there is high confidence of severe gales from an easterly quarter affecting a region including the central high country and Hawke’s Bay on Tuesday.

At sea, very large waves and a storm surge were being indicated for eastern coastlines from Northland to Gisborne from Sunday into Monday, spreading south to the Hawke’s Bay coast and as far as Marlborough on Tuesday.

MetService meteorologists conceded the “exact path” of the ninth ‘Gabrielle’ worldwide - the initial Hurricane Gabrielle occurred on the east coast of the US in 1989 - remains “uncertain”, but in Auckland, Civil Defence is reported to be already gearing up again as the city starts a long recovery process from the devastation of just a fortnight ago.

In the meantime, Hawke’s Bay was experiencing some of the country’s hottest temperatures of the week, although peaks had dropped from the plus-30C on Monday and Tuesday to 25-26C on Thursday, with forecasts for the region a mixture of fine and cloudy conditions with some showers over the next two to three days.