\u201cOne person died at the scene,\u201d police said, \u201cwhile another was airlifted to hospital with serious injuries\u201d. <\/p>\n
Hato Hone St John said two helicopters and one ambulance were sent to the scene about 1.55pm and one patient was airlifted to Auckland City Hospital in a serious condition. <\/p>\n
Weather conditions are expected to worsen and cause disruption later today.<\/p>\n
Police are urging motorists heading home to plan ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cDepending on where you are in New Zealand, road conditions could be impacted by high winds, rain, or even snow. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe know people will be eager to get home but it\u2019s really important that people adjust their driving to the weather conditions, even if it means a slightly longer trip.\u201d<\/p>\n
MetService has warned that heavy rain, strong winds and snow are expected for much of the country with several warnings in place. <\/p>\n
Heavy rain watches have been issued for the eastern ranges of Bay of Plenty, the central North Island hill country from southern Waikato to Tongariro National Park, Taranaki Maunga, Tararua Range and the Richmond and Bryant ranges for this afternoon, with some extending into Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Wellington, Wairarapa and the Tararua District and Marlborough, about and north of Cape Campbell also have strong wind warnings in place for this afternoon. <\/p>\n
In the South Island, there are some areas under a heavy snow warning, including the Canterbury high country south of SH73, Queenstown Lakes District about and north of W\u0101naka, and Central Otago about and north of Ranfurly from 1pm to 10pm. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs always, it\u2019s the basics that will help keep everyone safe,\u201d police said, \u201cwatch your speed, put your phone away, wear your seatbelt, and don\u2019t drive if you\u2019re impaired (including by fatigue).\u201d<\/p>\n
They also encouraged motorists to check the NZTA website before travel for updates on road conditions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOne person died at the scene,\u201d police said, \u201cwhile another was airlifted to hospital with serious injuries\u201d. Hato…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11730,6127,1975,536,71763,8278,4480,189,2072,1345,6721,111,43,139,69,675,1314,1961,61,42032,1237,25396,3055,4998,4767,102,74944],"class_list":["post-102708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-afternoon","tag-already","tag-at","tag-care","tag-carefully","tag-conditions","tag-drive","tag-holiday","tag-holidaymakers","tag-home","tag-labour","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-police","tag-road","tag-this","tag-to","tag-toll","tag-two","tag-urge","tag-urging","tag-weather","tag-weekend","tag-with","tag-worsen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}