Heavy rain and strong wind warnings remain in place for the top of the North Island as the remnants of ex-tropical cyclone Lola slowly spread south.
At least 6000 homes were left without power in Northland on Monday morning, according to Top Energy and North Power’s websites. More than 20 outages have been reported overnight from Sunday.
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Auckland commuters are also in for a wet and windy morning, with gusts of up to 130kph in exposed places.
Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency has warned drivers to expect delays along the Harbour Bridge and it has reduced speed limits and lane reductions to cope with the weather.
metservice
MetService issued multiple warnings and watches for strong winds and heavy rain from Sunday into Monday.
MetService has heavy rain warnings for Coromandel Peninsula, Northland and Gisborne on Monday morning.
Coromandel would be hit by the worst of the weather, with up to 140mm of rain expected between Sunday night and Monday afternoon, according to MetService.
A strong wind watch was in place for Northland, Auckland and Coromandel: “Strong wind gusts could damage trees, powerlines and unsecured structures”.
Meanwhile it was a chilly start in the South Island, with temperatures at 6am on Monday only hitting single digits. Christchurch woke to 9C, Dunedin was 8C while Timaru, Queenstown and Invercargill braced it out at 2C, while Nelson was 7C.
The bad weather wasn’t expected to ease anytime soon, with rain forecasted late into the week in Auckland.
Tauranga was expected to be worse off, according to MetService, with heavy rain possible for almost every day this week.
Conditions are better the further south down the country you are, with Wellington on track to hit 22C on Tuesday.
The South Island manages to avoid most of the rain, with temperatures passing the 20C mark in Christchurch later on in the week, before clouds roll in around Friday.
Dunedin, although clear, stays a bit cooler, hanging around the 16C mark.
Meteorologist John Law said rough seas would accompany the wind and rain too.
“There’s already plenty of severe weather warnings and watches in place”, he said.
High pressure down south was keeping things fine and dry across the South Island, Law said.
The potentially damaging rain and wind was being brought towards northern areas by a large, deep complex low pressure system, MetService said.
The system includes the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Lola, which left a path of destruction across parts of Vanuatu.
