West Coast braces for cyclone
A state of emergency could be declared on the West Coast as early as tonight if predictions about the intensity of Cyclone Gita hold true.
The storm, which caused havoc in Tonga last week, has the South Island in its ‘‘firing line’’.
Its centre is predicted to make landfall in the northwest of the island late tomorrow.
West Coast residents ‘‘getting their lives back together’’ after the devastation of ex-tropical cyclone Fehi a fortnight ago could be among those worst affected.
MetService issued a severe weather watch yesterday, warning of a ‘‘period of highly impactful severe weather’’, including gale force winds, heavy rain and coastal inundation for central New Zealand.
The West Coast Regional Council chief executive along with the mayors of the Buller, Grey and Westland districts and Civil Defence will meet at 5pm tonight to assess the latest predictions.
Yesterday, Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn said ‘‘we want to wait another day so we shore up more reliable data’’, but if ‘‘it still looks bad tomorrow night and we get Cyclone Ita-type winds, we will make a call [on the state of emergency] one way or another’’.
The remnants of Cyclone Ita struck New Zealand in April 2014.
Winds peaked at 130kmh in Westport, the Buller District was left without power, and 39 homes in the Grey District were left uninhabitable.
WeatherWatch head forecaster Phillip Duncan said Gita was ‘‘bigger’’ and ‘‘more powerful’’ than extropical cyclone Fehi, which caused extensive damage when it hit the West Coast early February.
Modelling showed the storm sitting off Cook Strait by 3pm tomorrow. It was due to hit the South Island directly by 9pm, bringing with it sustained galeforce winds in places of 60-80kmh from Taranaki to Westport, Duncan said. ‘‘Localised gusts could climb over 150kmh in exposed rural areas, possibly higher.
‘‘Damaging and destructive gusts are possible in all those main West Coast towns,’’ he said.
More than 100 millimetres of rain could fall within 24 hours in regions where MetService had heavy rain watches in place, including Canterbury, Marlborough, Nelson, parts of the West Coast, Wellington and Horowhenua.
Civil Defence and Emergency Management director Sarah Stuart-Black said Gita ‘‘has the potential to pack a punch and cause a lot of disruption’’.
She urged people to prepare for the possibility of power cuts, water outages and road closures that could ‘‘leave you or your loved ones stranded’’.