Brief break before heavy rain hits again

The red areas on this satellite image show the frontal system breaking up yesterday afternoon.

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A few brief rays of sunshine are on the way - but more rain and wind is in store after a weekend of miserable weather in the upper North Island.

MetService forecasts last night were for a cloudy Monday followed by more rain and drizzle.

And it gets worse. Weather forecaster Bob McDavitt said another low-pressure system could arrive on Friday, bringing more poor weather into next weekend.

It follows a subtropical low that brought storms, high winds and power cuts north of Auckland over the weekend.

This morning, police said part of State Highway 10 in the Far North had collapsed under the weight of a major landslide.

The highway was now closed and roading authorities were making their way to the scene.

Drivers in Otago and South Canterbury were being warned to take care this morning as black ice made travelling treacherous.

Snow and ice also closed SH1 at the Desert Road.

Auckland City was protected from gale-force winds that battered Northland over the weekend - killing a girl near Whangarei - by a dense layer of protective air downwind of the Coromandel, said Mr McDavitt.

The air barrier pushed southeasterly gales over the top of the city, grazing the tip of the Sky Tower but leaving city-dwellers unruffled, he said.

Auckland was expected to be windier last night as the wind changed direction and scooted around the layer of protection.

More than 18,000 people were left without electricity and firefighters were inundated with calls about fallen trees and lifted roofs after a storm hit on Friday night from Northland to Waikato.

Electricity has since been restored to most homes. A spokeswoman for Vector last night said 6400 of its customers had experienced outages over the weekend but only 23 were still without power.

Phone lines were also cut, and "wire snaps" at 175 Northland homes could take several days to repair, a Telecom spokesman said.

Danielle Anne Finlayson of Whakapara, 23km north-west of Whangarei, was killed just before 1am yesterday after a tree fell on the caravan she was sleeping in with two friends.

The area around her tiny community near Whangarei was among the worst hit by the weekend's dangerous weather. Mr McDavitt said 112mm of rain fell around Whangarei and winds reached 140km/h.

In all, firefighters responded to more than 100 weather-related calls, including roofs lifted from homes in Kerikeri, Mangawhai, Snells Beach and on Waiheke Island and a carport entangled in power lines in Whangaripo, near Matakana.

About 1000 people in the Far North, and about 23 homes near Auckland were still without power last night.

At the storm's height, 12,000 Far North residents lost power, 4000 of them on Saturday night, lines company Top Energy said. North of Auckland in Warkworth, Wellsford and Kaipara Flats, 6400 residents also lost electricity after trees fell on to power lines, said Vector.

Trees brought down power lines in the Coromandel and fell on to roads in the Far North, Whangarei, Rodney, North Shore, Coromandel and Waikato districts, said the Fire Service.

The worst weather was over by noon yesterday. The MetService predicted heavy rain and wind gusts would be gone in most places by late last night.

Flood-prone Northland communities may have been lucky to escape a repeat of the devastating floods in 2007, which cost $60 million in insurance claims.

Close to a month's rain fell in 36 hours on hills above Kaeo, or up to 170mm of rain, compared with the usual total of 250mm for all of July.

"If rainfall rates had been just 5mm to 10mm an hour more at the storm's height we would have seen widespread flooding," said Northland Regional Council water resources and hydrology programme manager Dale Hansen.

Heavy rain, swollen rivers, strong winds and large waves had combined to raise already high tides by another metre, flooding the lower river flats near Kaeo but not the town, he said.

Meanwhile, a father and his two children were found safe and well yesterday after going missing just before the poor weather while on a day hike in Northland's Mangamuka Ranges.

Vector had steeled itself for far worse power cuts in Auckland after the MetService forecast wind gusts of up to 140km/h. Forecasters said yesterday the city was fortunate to escape the worst of the damage.