Heavy rain yields floods, slips

Heavy rain over the upper North Island brought slips and flooding yesterday evening.

Around 8.30pm, the Fire Service reported flooding at four or five houses on Whangaparaoa Rd in Rodney.

The occupants of one property were preparing to evacuate and the council had been brought in to inspect the house.

The Fire Service was also called to a woman stuck in her car in flood waters on Walpole Rd, Ellerslie, under the Southern Motorway.

Late last night, a spokesman for the Fire Service said the situation was getting worse, with flooding reported in Mission Bay and Tamaki Drive.

Two cars had to be towed from Shore Rd, Remuera, after getting stuck in water and the Fire Service was looking at closing the road.

MetService issued another severe warning for parts of Auckland and Coromandel Peninsula last night, with further heavy rain and possible thunderstorms expected until morning.

A front over the Hauraki Gulf was expected to move very slowly south overnight before weakening around Coromandel Peninsula today.

This front was expected to bring bursts of heavy rain and thunderstorms to parts of Auckland from Orewa south through to the early hours of today, and to Coromandel Peninsula through to late morning.

A further 30 to 50mm of rain is likely in Auckland and a further 70 to 100mm in Coromandel.

MetService forecasters said the heavy rain could fall in a relatively short time, leading to surface flooding, hazardous driving conditions and possible slips.

Stream and river levels could also rise quickly.

Around 3pm yesterday, in the middle of severe thunderstorm warnings, the Auckland weather radar temporarily stopped sending images.

MetService forecaster Andy Downs said the radar was fairly new and a technical glitch caused it to stop working for a short time.

MetService uses the radar to determine the intensity of rain through the atmosphere and track thunderstorms and hale.

Today will bring a break in the clouds and some sunshine for Auckland. Temperatures today and tomorrow are expected to be in the low 20s.

Weather Watch analyst Philip Duncan described the system as the "perfect storm". He said it was a strange mix of thunderstorms in the northwest and rain in the northeast meeting over the north of Auckland.

"That's the reason we saw such atrocious weather."

Mr Duncan said there was more rain on the way last night, but the thunderstorms had gone.

He expected things to improve slowly this morning as a high coming across the Tasman pushes the storm south, but said showers would continue in the Far North.

"It should be a good day across the country from south of Auckland."

Tomorrow should be fine but late drizzle will continue until Monday.

A spokeswoman for the police said they received a number of reports of flooding yesterday evening, mostly north of Auckland.

TODAY'S OUTLOOK
Rain clearing, with sunny spells