MetService National weather: February 28th-March 1st
Ten days of long-awaited sunshine are forecast for the North Island, as flood-hit communities continue to reel from devastation wrought by the wettest summer many regions have ever seen.
During this summer, Auckland experienced the most rainfall - almost a metre of rain in three months - since records began 155 years ago.
It comes as another round of heavy rain caused more strife on the island’s east coast, with “severe flooding” and evacuations in Gisborne and at least two major highways closed, including State Highway 5 into Napier.
But MetService meteorologist Andrew James said the fresh deluges there Monday night and yesterday morning marked the “end of this wet spell ... for now”.
“Things are looking a lot better now than even [yesterday] morning.”
Wairoa and Gisborne Districts’ orange heavy rain warnings lapsed about midday yesterday, giving way to a “broad easing trend as a front brings clearer weather”, James said.
For the next few days in cyclone-ravaged Gisborne, showers give way to fine conditions with partly cloudy spells before rain returns on Sunday.
Private forecaster Weather Watch said the next 10 days were looking drier for hard-hit regions, “perhaps the most positive weather forecast these places have seen [this year]”.
Hawke’s Bay should get much of the same, with fine days lasting until Sunday, MetService forecast. Coromandel should also enjoy some fine weather.
In Auckland, meanwhile, the worst weather this week is likely to be a few partly cloudy days, but conditions should remain mainly fine with temperatures sitting around 24C until Monday.
“It is a decent dry spell for the North Island to the end of the weekend,” James said.
It was a joy to be outside at Victoria Park, Auckland, yesterday — and a nice stretch of sunshine lies ahead for the city and much of the North Island. Photo / Michael Craig
MetService meteorologist Karl Loots said a front was expected to weaken and move away from the country yesterday morning, taking the rain and the thunderstorms with it.
The super city has truly been super-soaked this summer, the wettest in Auckland’s recorded history.
And one meteorologist told the Herald his and his colleagues’ minds “have been boggled” by the amount of rain this summer - about 90 per cent of the city’s usual annual total.
Rainfall amounts in this 2022-23 summer surpassed the last record set 105 years ago when 629mm was recorded at Albert Park.
This summer, just shy of a metre of rain was recorded at the same spot, 280mm more than the last record set in 1916-17.
Auckland has been inundated with 902mm of rainfall since the beginning of summer on December 1, according to the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa).
More than half a metre fell in January alone, when the city’s Anniversary Weekend was disrupted by a torrential storm which killed four people as floodwaters raged and slips inundated homes.
MetService meteorologist Rob Kerr told the Herald it has been a “phenomenally wet” year so far, especially considering Auckland usually gets about 1000mm of rain annually.
Flooding already beginning to happen after weather warnings issued for Auckland and Northland a week after Cyclone Gabrielle hit the majority of the North Island. Photo / Dean Purcell
And while dry weather is on the cards for the North Island, the opposite is true for the South Island.
“A series of fronts will bring some rain to southern and western parts of the South Island in the second half of the week,” Loots said. “This comes on the back of a much drier than usual summer for many in [those] parts of the country.”
These forecasts come after evacuations and road closures in Gisborne yesterday as drains and creeks filled with water and surface flooding inundated a “whole” suburb.
Civil defence officials in Gisborne said a “number of properties” were evacuated in the suburb of Mangapapa.
Police moved door to door, with an evacuation centre set up at the House of Breakthrough on Potae Ave.
“There is severe surface flooding for the whole of the Mangapapa. Fire and Emergency have closed roads in and around the areas from Lytton High School to Winter St,” Civil Defence said.
About 102mm of rain fell in Wairoa in the 24 hours to 10am yesterday - 116 per cent of the February monthly norm, Niwa said.
“[That’s] over a month’s worth of rain, again...”
Ormond Rd resident Helen Amanda told the Herald she noticed water surrounding her property at 4am yesterday.
“My daughter called us because the police woke them, alerting us to flood. Police told us we need to be ready to leave.
“We are starting to feel trapped and a bit hopeless because there’s nothing you can do to stop the weather.”
