Snow, rain and gales cause chaos
Possible heavy rain in the ranges of eastern Bay of Plenty is just about all that is left of a storm that flashed up the country on Tuesday night and yesterday.
The cleanup has begun after snow blanketed the deep south as a severe front brought wintry conditions, gales, heavy rain, and flooding to many parts of the country.
Maximum wind gusts of 154kmh were recorded at Wellington’s Mt Kaukau early yesterday, the MetService said, while rainfall hit 33 millimetres an hour on Mt Taranaki and up to 20cm of snow was recorded at the Homer Tunnel in Fiordland.
A catamaran was beached in Nelson, while widespread power outages were reported across the top of the South Island early yesterday.
The first Jane-Maree Holmes knew her catamaran had come ashore was when her neighbour called at 2am, shortly after high tide, to say their boat was resting against his fence.
‘‘It’s dragged its anchor at the height of the storm and it has just drifted up on to the road,’’ she said.
Meanwhile many in the south woke to snow.
‘‘Holy moly! 27cm of snow at some ski fields! Wow. If you’re heading to Mt Cook be advised that there’s a high avalanche danger. Check avalanche.net.nz for more details’’, the Mountain Safety Council tweeted.
Amy Menard from Lake Tekapo said the township had a ‘‘very snowy start to the day’’, with about 10cm of snow on the ground.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) spokesman Ian Littlejohn said that between about midnight and 3.30am yesterday the upper West Coast, and to some extent the east coast down to North Canterbury, had taken a battering from the storm front moving through.
During that time Fenz attended about 14 weather-related incidents. Flooding
Houses in the Monaco and Tahunanui areas of Nelson were flooded by the storm and by a sea surge.
A couple of houses in Nelson had their doors blown off, Littlejohn said.
A group of campers on a waterfront reserve area in the Mapua and Ruby Bay area were given help to evacuate.
At Dobson, near Greymouth on the West Coast, a trampoline blowing into a powerline caused a fire in a transformer on a power pole about midnight.
Power was out to large areas of the top of the South Island overnight and there were many reports of powerlines being down, particularly on the West Coast.
Heavy rain fell in Westland, Fiordland and the headwaters of Canterbury and Otago waterways and lakes on Tuesday night.
Hokitika had 82mm of rain over a period of 15-18 hours, with up to 120mm recorded in other parts of Westland. In parts of the Tasman District, 50-90mm of rain was recorded in a 12-hour period.