Civil Defence and emergency services have urged New Zealanders to prepare for the worst as a ferocious polar blast bears down on the country.

MetService's website is back online after it went down due to a "hardware failure" yesterday.

Floodwaters have "scoured" rural roads across Otago, as the region struggles to cope with the aftermath of the worst flooding in decades.

Snow forecast for later this week will be just the icing on the cake for Wanaka skifields.

There will be a brief reprieve today for towns cleaning up from yesterday's floods as they prepare for the threat of "blizzard conditions" later this week.

Snow could reach as far north as Coromandel and the Kaimai Ranges later this week as a huge winter storm looks set to batter the country.

Another slip caused a home to be evacuated early this morning in the Tasman district, just 12 hours after a woman was killed in her house by a landslide.

Police have released the name of the woman who died when a landslide engulfed her home near Kaiteriteri yesterday afternoon.

A "cold snap" later this week would bring "rain with snow to basically sea level for eastern areas of the South Island and low levels about Wellington and the North Island's east coast plus central areas to boot," said WeatherWatch.co.nz.

The Czech capital Prague declared a state of emergency as the worst flooding for more than a decade tore into the city, threatening to engulf the streets of its historic heart.

Sajeev Puthussery first heard a bubbling sound and then saw water trickling through the door.

After flooding in the Bay of Plenty, Auckland and Hamilton, Nelson has become the latest region to be hit by the wild weekend weather.

Swift-water rescue teams saved 16 children after their bus was trapped by flash flooding in southern Brisbane in a huge storm dumping heavy rain on southeast Queensland.

Two people have died, a newborn baby and other children helicoptered to safety and over 20 people have been rescued in severe weather and flooding across NSW. An evacuation order is now in place for residents of Kempsey on the NSW mid-north coast.

It was not a pleasant sight: as the city's ageing sewerage system failed to cope, streets filled with murky grey water that smelled and looked as if it was heavily polluted with raw sewage.

Australian residents are being urged to beware of crocodiles as the flooded Fitzroy River in Rockhampton recedes after peaking at a less than expected 8.6 metres.

A Kiwi is one of six people to die in the Queensland floods. He was being swept off his motorcycle at an intersection in the Brisbane suburb of Greenbank.

An 82-year-old former Masterton resident has been located by Interpol after his family feared he was lost in the Queensland floods.

With towns still isolated, thousands displaced and emergency supplies struggling to get through as stocks run short, Australia is again counting the cost of massive flooding.

A Northland man who had been repairing Queensland roads damaged in floods in 2010 and 2011 has been stranded in Bundaberg as a result of ex-cyclone Oswald.