Wild winds and very heavy rainfall have lashed the North Island of New Zealand overnight with the Coromandel area receiving the bulk of the rainfall, receiving 130mm of rainfall in a 12 hour period between 5:00pm yesterday and 5:00am this morning.
Hundreds of residents in Auckland were without power with wind gusts up to 100km/h, especially to the north of the city at Whangaparaoa. Power is also out in parts of the Coromandel area with major flooding closing some sections of State Highway 25, however this road has now reopened for thoroughfare.
Residents situated in the Bay of Plenty area awoke to scenes of trees down and uprooted, garden sheds blown over with some damages to roofs and homes evident from the damaging winds overnight. Western parts of the Bay of Plenty received winds with peak gusts to 110km/h during the early morning, with the strongest gust of 160km/h recorded at White Island in the eastern Bay of Plenty.
As of 8:00am this morning, the center of the low pressure system responsible for the heavy rain and damaging winds was situated directly over Northland, bringing east to northeast winds into Auckland. Gales are still expected around parts of the Great Barrier Island before the low clears over the East Cape tomorrow with residual winds and rain areas. Conditions are expected to vastly improve into Thursday at this stage.
Remember to keep up-to-date with all warnings and severe weather alerts via The Early Warning Network (Email, SMS, Facebook and Twitter). #ewnalerts #earlywarningnetwork
Image 1: Winds and pressure bars of intense low pressure system situated over Northland at 8:00am via Windyty - October 15th, 2019