Coromandel: ‘A 1-in-15-year deluge’
The wild weather that lashed Coromandel is being described as a one-in-15-year storm.
Heavy rain and blustery winds hammered the upper North Island on Monday causing slips, closing roads and making travel treacherous on the long weekend.
About 11.30pm on Monday, State Highway 25 between Tairua and Hikuai opened after it was closed for almost 12 hours due to flooding that immersed farmland and roads.
Recovery work was to start by Waikato Regional Council staff yesterday on water courses and catchments impacted by the weather event, they said.
Their Pinnacles weather station recorded 520mm of rain at 6pm on Monday.
The frequency of this size event, over the 48-hour period, was about a 15-year return interval, they said.
A silver lining to the wild weather was likely enough to finally break the drought threatening farmers in the
Hauraki and ThamesCoromandel districts.
Rural Support National chairperson Neil Bateup, who farms in North Waikato, said the soil moisture levels would be up, which means grass could finally start to grow before winter sets in.
‘‘Feed in those dry areas was the real issue and the best feed you can have is grass. It doesn’t cost you any money to bring it on to the farm.’’
Bateup said he expected a higher than average grass growth rate for a while.
‘‘The soil has been very dry and dry soil doesn’t cool down too much. It was a reasonably warm rainfall we had and hopefully that’s provided enough temperature in the soil to quickly grow grass.’’
In some higher areas of the Coromandel, the weekend rain would have caused flooding and damage was to be expected, Bateup said.
‘‘Farmers will be out now taking stock of the situation, inspecting their fences, checking culverts for damage, doing an assessment.
‘‘There’s still a lot of rain on the paddocks at the moment, so they won’t know for a while what the damage might be.’’
The Waikato Primary Industries Adverse Event Cluster, made up of Waikato and South Auckland agricultural industry representatives, planned to meet yesterday afternoon for an update on the status of the drought.