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People are being urged to drive cautiously as rain buckets down across the country and police report an increase in road accidents.
Police in the lower North Island had attended more than 10 accidents before 11am, including seven in the Wellington region.
A central police communications spokesman said the number of call outs was much higher than normal, most likely due to surface flooding causing cars to slip on the roads.
He said people needed to drive to the conditions to prevent further accidents.
Elsewhere in the country police were not reporting the same trend of numerous accidents, but also urged people to take care on the roads in the poor conditions.
Fire fighters have also been called out.
Northern fire communications team leader Paul Radden said they've had about 10 calls today to do with weather.
He said they mainly consisted of trees and branches down across roads and some surface flooding around houses.
Mr Radden's countrepart in Wellington, David Meikle, said there has been some surface flooding in the district of Kilbirnie. He said there was also a leaking roof in Palmerston North that fire fighters attended.
MetService this morning issued a nationwide severe weather warning for heavy rain, but said the weather was expected to ease over most of the country throughout the day.
MetService forecaster Allister Gorman said the eastern hills of the Bay of Plenty could get up to 150mm of rain.
Auckland and the Waikato are also set for more rain, although it should begin to ease tonight.
Sewage is overflowing in central Wellington following heavy rain in the capital.
Wellington City Council communications manager Richard MacLean said this morning that sewage is spilling out into the Courtenay Place and Tory St area. He said work is underway to fix the blockage but he is not sure how long the clean up will take.
Mr Gorman said the heavy rain is now moving south and MetService has issued a severe weather warning for the hills of Canterbury.
He said Westland is in for more down-pours with up to 160mm of rain possible in the southern Otira ranges.
There have been a number of slips on the Featherston side of Rimutaka Hill Rd, State Highway Two.
Police team leader Chris Turner said the slips have been reported to police and motorists should be cautious.
Mr Gorman said the eastern hills will also get a soaking with areas between Timaru and Balclutha set to get up to 150mm over the next two days.
He said that could cause stream and river levels to rise quickly and encouraged people to check up-to-date forecasts.
MetService spokesman Bob McDavitt said the rain is due to a low pressure system which is a combination of the one that brought floods to New South Wales earlier in the week and the remains of
Tropical Cyclone Innis near New Caledonia.
He said the North Island will be worst hit, particularly the central hill country areas. The heaviest falls are likely to be on Mt Taranaki and in the ranges of Bay of Plenty.
Mr McDavitt said unfortunately the low is slow moving, so the rain will stick around for much of the weekend.
Earlier this morning, police were at the bottom of the Ngauranga Gorge, north of Wellington, attending a crash that blocked one southbound lane.
The downpours were expected to continue over the weekend for Westland and eastern hills of South Canterbury and Otago.
- NZ HERALD STAFF, NEWSTALK ZB
