Christchurch pelted with 8 months' worth of rain already this year

The new Dudley Creek bypass in Christchurch is coping well with the rain. Photo / Christchurch City Council Newsline

It's shaping up to be a record wet year down south, after eight months' of rain fell in Christchurch in the first four months of this year.

The region had had nearly 400mm rain by May 1, according to MetService figures, well above the average for the four first months of the year.

Metservice figures show Christchurch has already had 8 months worth of rain this year. Photo / Metservice

Persistent heavy rain in early January caused rivers to overflow, and caused flooding and road closures in the city, forcing the Christchurch City Council to turn on water pumps as the rain coincided with a particularly high tide.

Christchurch wasn't the only region that had a soggy start to 2018.

MetService figures provided at the end of February showed Auckland had been drenched with more than one-third of the normal annual rainfall.

Michael Bao braves the heavy rain running along Curran Street past the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Photo / File

A string of storms in the start of this year made for a largely wet but warm climate for the country.

March rainfall was patchy across New Zealand, and heavy rain flooded some areas.

Levels were highest - or more than 149 per cent above normal - in the central North Island, the eastern North Island south of Napier, Kapiti Coast, Nelson, South Canterbury, North and Central Otago and Fiordland.

Rainfall was also above normal in Northland, the southern half of the North Island and the Tasman District.