Wellingtonians, in particular, are under a heavy rain warning for the hills east of the city through until 6pm today, while Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay are also waking up to survey how they fared after yet another day of steady falls.
Gisborne-Tairāwhiti’s heavy rain warning ends at 6am today with MetService warning that from about midday on Saturday and 90mm to 120 mm of rain on top of what had already fallen was expected in higher ground.
“Heavy rain may cause streams and rivers to rise rapidly. Surface flooding and slips are also possible and driving conditions may be hazardous,” the forecaster warned yesterday.
With State Highway 2 heading north out of Gisborne only reopening days earlier, Tairāwhiti Civil Defence urged residents to keep up to date with road conditions on it and SH35 heading south as well.
Southern Hawke’s Bay is also under a heavy rain warning, while the northern part of the region is under a heavy rain watch.
The weather alerts last until 6pm today.
“100 to 130 mm of rain is expected about the ranges and eastern hills south of Hastings, and 50 to 80 mm elsewhere,” MetService said.
Despite the alerts, Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence yesterday said it didn’t yet have concerns about the level of rainfall expected.
Central Hawke’s Bay river levels could, however, rise by 1m-1.5m and residents are urged to be careful.
East Wellington and the Wairarapa, Tasman west of Mapua, East Marlborough and the Marlborough Sounds, Banks Peninsula and Dunedin and north Otago are all also under heavy rain watches through to this afternoon and evening.
Elsewhere, Hamilton is set for temperatures around 15C during the second week of the school holidays with more widespread and heavier rain settling in from Wednesday.
Tauranga can expect more sunshine with temperatures also hovering around 15C, while Napier should rebound from the bad weekend weather for fine spells and highs of 17C from Monday through to Wednesday.
New Plymouth is looking at temperatures around 15C before rain and tops of 14C hit later in the week.
Tuesday is the pick of the weather in Dunedin when the mercury hits 12C for fine skies before more rain and colder days set in later in the week.
Invercargill is also set for intermittent rain and fine spells as temperatures sit around 10C along with a couple of overnight lows downs to 0C.
