John B - do you still have your head above water?

[epoxyboy]

Was it as bad up where you are, as Auckland?
For those outside of NZ, Auckland has a new rainfall record of 249mm, or 10" over the last 24 hours. A state of emergency has been declared, lots of flooding.

Pete

[JayInOz]

On the news- looks bad.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Is this biblical style retribution for getting rid of your P.M.

Reports on the telly look really rough - hope you guys are OK,

[epoxyboy]

It was all good in my part of paradise - 30C, sunny skies, a gentle breeze. Christchurch is in a bit of a goldilocks zone - far enough south that we miss anything that started in the tropics, protected by the alps from most of what comes in from the west, and cold southerly systems tend to veer offshore to the east.
Auckland is a bit more exposed, and this weather event has been next level nasty.

Pete

[john welsford]

I'm just outside Rotorua, we're all good, there is some surface water around, the Ngongotaha stream about 50m away is up maybe a metre, we're three metres above that level, but nothing really serious as yet. Still raining hard and blowing as well.
There is lightning out there, just a moment ago.

John Welsford

[John B]

Thanks Pete, yes we're fine , ran home thursday in front of it, heavyish rain but not too bad.
One of my kids has a flooded basement in AKl though

[John B]

Thanks Pete, yes we're fine , ran home thursday in front of it, heavyish rain but not too bad.
One of my kids has a flooded basement in AKl though

[LeeG]

10” in a day, yikes

[PatrickXavier]

Resulted in cancellation of the much-feted Mahurangi Regatta, more’s the pity (but clearly sensibly, the traditional Friday night race north from Auckland would have encountered the heaviest spell of rain (at 95 mm/4 in for the hour from 5.00 pm) and Mahurangi West peninsula was completely cut off from southern road access until Sunday morning). Still everyone there seems to have survived …

FD0B3D91-3B97-4A41-9A15-36994D5EE283.jpg

C4932BB4-6B85-48ED-9932-19FC5E25C087.jpg

… most importantly, Rogue (circled below in the midst of Friday’s deluge, but I leave you to discern in the subsequent photos above).

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Mahurangi Harbour, on a more usual Regatta weekend.

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[LeeG]

How can you folks stand living there?

[Peerie Maa]

Unfortunately reports are coming in of at least three dead.

At least three people have died and one is missing after New Zealand's largest city experienced its "wettest day on record" on Friday.
Auckland is said to have received 75% of its usual summer rainfall in just 15 hours.
<snip>
More severe weather is forecast across Auckland until Tuesday, according to the MetService.
The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), the country's climate science body, said Friday was the wettest day on record for a number of locations in Auckland. Heavy rains were forecast in various parts of the city for at least the next five days.
"It goes without saying that we need to have a conversation about how climate change is making these events more frequent and how cities like Auckland are massively underprepared," said Mr March.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64440319

[PatrickXavier]

It’s a trial but, if someone must, it may as well be us.

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[John B]

Resulted in cancellation of the much-feted Mahurangi Regatta, more’s the pity (but clearly sensibly, the traditional Friday night race north from Auckland would have encountered the heaviest spell of rain (at 95 mm/4 in for the hour from 5.00 pm) and Mahurangi West peninsula was completely cut off from southern road access until Sunday morning). Still everyone there seems to have survived …





… most importantly, Rogue (circled below in the midst of Friday’s deluge, but I leave you to discern in the subsequent photos above).



Mahurangi Harbour, on a more usual Regatta weekend.

F23169B7-D70B-4B06-8C8F-13F41051EFC8.jpg

When we were out visiting Arethusa a few days ago I was asked if I'd been to the Mahurangi regatta.
' decades of them, raced , spectated.'
I'd love to try and make it next year, we've been missing them since we moved North.
A couple of Auckland refugees just left our house for the drive south, detours etc to get home for them, I just saw that an old school friend is one of the unfortuntes who has lost a giant patch of land into the sea, and another phone call from a cruising buddy whose basement flat is flooded.
There's another heavy rain watch warning out for here and more for Auckland as well it appears.
Going out to clear a drive culvert in case.

[Chip-skiff]

We lived in Grafton, on top of a hill, so would have come out okay. The playing fields in the Domain nearby look like a reservoir.

But we have old friends in Remuera, who live at the base of a steep slope. They're both in their 90s—I'm a bit worried about them.

[AnalogKid]

4 dead now ( body of person declared missing has been found). One of the dead was very local, went to school with my son.

Wwe came out of it unscathed though, thankfully. The cleanup will take a good while, and we just had a civil defences alert for further heavy rain tonight.

[skuthorp]

My bit of Aus could do with some of that. The weather systems that dump water north of us also mean we just get humidity and a drizzle.

[John B]

Here we go... A tough night knowing this is coming, wet and wild, but up to 10 inches from this afternoon, more importantly is the hourly rate which I'm seeing as 1 to as much as 2.5 in from different interpretations. This be your new ' atmospheric river' weather jargon.
Screenshot_20230131_083646_Windy.jpg

[AnalogKid]

There's gonna be more slips for sure - all that freshly exposed dirt from Friday, and some of the big trees that only just managed to cling on will succumb to fresh rain on totally sodden ground.

I'm glad we're not cliff-top, but at the current rate of erosion, give it 10 or 12 years and we will be.

[WX]

My bit of Aus could do with some of that. The weather systems that dump water north of us also mean we just get humidity and a drizzle.

We have people up here who have PTSD from last year's flood .

[john welsford]

There's gonna be more slips for sure - all that freshly exposed dirt from Friday, and some of the big trees that only just managed to cling on will succumb to fresh rain on totally sodden ground.

I'm glad we're not cliff-top, but at the current rate of erosion, give it 10 or 12 years and we will be.

Time to move? I checked out a number of properties along the Coromandel coast, and although I really wanted to live within easy range of salt water, the vulnerability of the access roads was a major consideration in my decision to move inland to Rotorua.

John Welsford

[john welsford]

When we were out visiting Arethusa a few days ago I was asked if I'd been to the Mahurangi regatta.
' decades of them, raced , spectated.'
I'd love to try and make it next year, we've been missing them since we moved North.
A couple of Auckland refugees just left our house for the drive south, detours etc to get home for them, I just saw that an old school friend is one of the unfortuntes who has lost a giant patch of land into the sea, and another phone call from a cruising buddy whose basement flat is flooded.
There's another heavy rain watch warning out for here and more for Auckland as well it appears.
Going out to clear a drive culvert in case.

I've three visitors here from Texas, keen sailors, and one of their goals was to be out on the water for the Mahurangi regatta. Instead they've been trapped here in Rotorua, they've been very welcome guests and we've managed to find things to keep them busy and interested.

We did get out on Lake Tarawera for the day, and the girls spent a night on board in a very sheltered patch of reeds.
We got them and the boat off the water about an hour before the serious rain arrived.

They're off to Waitomo in a few mins, the black water rafting is closed but the main caves are in business.

John Welsford

[AnalogKid]

Time to move? I checked out a number of properties along the Coromandel coast, and although I really wanted to live within easy range of salt water, the vulnerability of the access roads was a major consideration in my decision to move inland to Rotorua.

John Welsford

The closest bit of cliff is 130m away according to Google Maps. There's the houses that back on to the cliff, the road, and then the houses on the other side of the road that back on to ours before we're in any real danger. We've been here 18 years now and every now and again a big slip occurs - we lost the beach access steps about 12 years ago, and then there's years with no change at all. So I was being a bit over-dramatic with the 10-12 year timeline, I hope.

I took these on Saturday morning. You'll recognise the beach, was it Truant that you launched at Island Bay? The arrow on the first shot shows a tree down over the new, replacement steps - I've not gone to see how bad it is, but I'm sure that tree is now in the firewood pile of a neighbour that lives opposite. The steps in the left of the first pictures are right beside the boat ramp, which would be about 20m behind me in the second shot.

IslandBay1.jpg

IslandBay2.jpg

ETA: The 25-year-old that died on Friday night when he fell out of his kayak in Wairau Valley grew up in a house about 100m up the hill in the second shot.

[John B]

Some boats , including Annie Hills Junk, have moved out of the river down to the inlet near us to be away from the possibilty of debris or worse if the basin floods.

[John B]

State of emergency declared for Northland, hopefully they've jumped the gun a bit on that because of the poor response to Fridays storm in Auckland, where everyone was caught unaware of the intensity. Big backlash against leaders happening there, but there I was watching weather because we'd been on the boat, ( we ran home on thursday) ...there were warnings about rain but nothing to suggest the true scope of the event.
The rain radar shows the highest volume of water skirting us right now , hopefully it'll do the same for Auckland later tonight.

[Robbie 2]

Te Aroha...my now home town.

IMG_4462(a).jpg
A recently created freedom camping spot by the river for two campervans.
Now under about a metre of water.

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The dirt track Go Kart club's track.
The green you see, marks the track edge.

IMG_4474(a).jpg

This park is filled with named trees for essential workers who worked through the 2020 Covid19 Pandemic.
My wife's name is on one of those trees which are now about 2 metre's tall.

IMG_4476(a).jpg

Finally, the dog walking park by the river. Now about 2 metre's underwater.

[AnalogKid]

Is picture 4 the wetland park on the opposite side of the river from town, Robbie? Most of the housing is a few metres at least above the river, is it not? I hope you're still dry.

Friends of mine live about 6Km west of Te Aroha, just out of Waihou. Steve told me this morning it was a bit damp but no flooding so far. The Waitoa River is just over the road from his place, so I hope that is still the case.

[Mcjim]

Good luck tonight Northerners.
Stay safe.

[Robbie 2]

The town is split by the river. About 50/50 each side though the business area is on the higher hill side.
Our house is on flat land just below the mountain.....if we ever flooded the entire Hauraki Plains would be under approx 50 foot of water.
I feel we are quite safe where we are.

[Robbie 2]

[QUOTE=AnalogKid;6795635]Is picture 4 the wetland park on the opposite side of the river from town, Robbie?

The wetland walk is accessed by crossing that bridge that can be seen in photo one.
That whole area of wetland including the track around it is well underwater right now.

Picture 4 is of the dog walking area which is usually a couple of metre's above the river's usual water level.

[John B]

It's blue sky now, the inlet is brown up close but has a strange lavender hue in the distance.
All media attention is on Auckland unsurprisingly , but the regions are in trouble . Coromandel town looks cut off to me, I've been sent a photo of of state highway 1 at Brynderwyn and the entire road is down the hill at at least one point ..which means substantial detours.That's years of work at our govts speed, they gave up on Kataia , maybe they'll just give up on Northland altogether.. nothing would surprise me.

[JayInOz]

We have a bunch of New Zealand volunteers over here who came to help with the massive clean up after our floods- now we're sending volunteers to New Zealand to help over there! Haven't heard anything lately from Andrew Mackey- the Once A Day Farmer from the southern end of the north island. He's a dairy farmer I follow on Youtube. He had acres of land under water back in July and big koi carp swimming around in the paddocks. I assume it's a lot worse this time. JayInOz

[John B]

We have a bunch of New Zealand volunteers over here who came to help with the massive clean up after our floods- now we're sending volunteers to New Zealand to help over there! Haven't heard anything lately from Andrew Mackey- the Once A Day Farmer from the southern end of the north island. He's a dairy farmer I follow on Youtube. He had acres of land under water back in July and big koi carp swimming around in the paddocks. I assume it's a lot worse this time. JayInOz

I've seen one of his videos but this flooding is upper North island mostly. But you never know.
Its the worst summer weather in my life , thats one thing for sure.

[JayInOz]

I thought it would have been more widespread. I had a look at the map- New Zealand is only about the size of a decent toe nail clipping after all

[John B]

I thought it would have been more widespread. I had a look at the map- New Zealand is only about the size of a decent toe nail clipping after all

haha, yer funny Jay , thanks for the laugh. Mind you Au won't be very big when you've finished hollowing out the middle and selling the dirt to China eh. But Atoll living is nice ...

The roading authority in NZ used to be the Ministry of Works but due to the ambiguity of the name ( well.., the 'work' word) they changed it several times and have ended up with Waka Kotahe. Waka means transportation in the greater sense but since that was always by boat back in the day , it really just means boat. Kotahe means first but you'd find that more often than not as the name of the first born son, so Waka Kotahe really means Kotahe's boat.
Kotahe's boat doesn't float very well. I think the bung got left out.