Jetboat in its element burning up flooded South Island road past slow-moving 4WDs

The jetboat speeds past. Photo / jorgemoraes

A driver tackling one of the South Island's many flooded roads has captured the moment another traveller took a unique approach to the challenge, cruising down the highway on a jetboat.

Jorge Moraes shared two videos to Instagram showing the boat's cheeky move, as it drove past a convoy of four-wheel-drive vehicles on a road near Lake Wānaka.

Moraes said: "The guy leaves the lake and comes on to the street."

The video was posted on Saturday, amid a weekend of drastic weather across the country.

A reprieve from the flooding, thunderstorms, lightning strikes and flooding is expected in the coming days.

And, if we go back to midnight Friday...

8⃣5⃣7⃣0⃣0⃣0⃣ strikes have occurred over the eastern Tasman and NZ regions in less than 72 hours! pic.twitter.com/TeaTyBNNuU

— NIWA Weather (@NiwaWeather) December 8, 2019

MetService forecaster Paul Ngamanu said that the current front bringing thunderstorms will slowly move off the North Island in the next few days, as a ridge brings fine weather to much of the country.