Many areas are being battered by heavy rain and wild winds as a New Zealand-shaped front rolls west across the country.
Severe weather warnings were in force for Northland, Auckland, the Coromandel, Bay of Plenty, Nelson, and Westland on Monday morning, with heavy rain expected.
People in Auckland and Fiordland were warned to brace for strong winds, and there were also a number of less severe weather watches in force across the country.
MetService meteorologist Dan Corrigan said all the morning’s warnings and watches related to an active weather front coming from the Tasman Sea, moving in a line parallel to New Zealand.
“Everyone’s going to be affected,” he said.
For Auckland, despite the worst being already over, ferry services from Pine Harbour and Gulf Harbour were cancelled on Monday morning due to severe weather.
Corrigan said 40 millimetres had fallen in the past six hours, but half of that fell in just one hour, from 2am.
The Nelson-Tasman district, still recovering from last week’s devastating floods, saw the heaviest rainfall, with the ranges west of Motueka getting nearly 70mm in the past six hours.
“That heavy rain warning is in force well into the evening there. We’re expecting [it] to continue to fall throughout the day.”
Of most concern were the rain warnings for Nelson and Westland, and the less severe heavy rain watch for north-west Marlborough, MetService told Stuff on Sunday.
Those areas were affected by severe flooding and heavy rain on July 17 and 18, with Buller district still under a state of emergency and dozens of flood-damaged homes in Westport thought to be lost.
Corrigan said places where the ground was saturated may experience further impacts, including possible flooding.
After the front breezes through, he said, it would be followed by a “showery flow”, bringing a risk of thunderstorms along the country’s west coast – including Auckland – until later in the day.
