A severe thunderstorm watch has been lifted for a large swathe of the North Island this New Year’s Eve, but Northland and Auckland remain in the firing line.<\/p>\n
MetService said conditions were primed for heavy showers and thunderstorms capable of producing intense downpours of 25 to 40mm per hour before easing tonight.<\/p>\n
“Rainfall of this intensity can cause surface and flash flooding, especially in low-lying areas such as streams, rivers, or narrow valleys, and may also trigger slips,” the forecaster said. <\/p>\n
“Driving conditions will be hazardous with surface flooding and poor visibility in heavy rain.”<\/p>\n
MetService meteorologist Devlin Lynden told 1News a large, slow-moving low travelling west would bring bands of rain, showers, and possible severe thunderstorms to many parts of the country.<\/p>\n
Thunderstorms were already \u201csparking up\u201d in southern Waikato near Waitomo and Taumarunui, with other areas at risk this evening.<\/p>\n
“The most severe is within the watch zone, but further east there\u2019s a reasonable risk of thunderstorms without those heavy downpours \u2014 places like inland Bay of Plenty, Coromandel, Rotorua, Taup\u014d, and inland Hawke\u2019s Bay,” Lynden said.<\/p>\n
New Year’s Eve cancellations<\/p>\n
Palmerston North City Council cancelled its New Year’s Eve event in The Square due to forecaste severe winds.<\/p>\n
The council said the cancellation included all entertainment and both fireworks displays.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are really sorry to have to make this call, especially knowing how many people were looking forward to celebrating together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tauranga City Council cancelled all five of its community New Year\u2019s Eve events.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Monday, the council said it had chosen to cancel the New Year\u2019s Eve events as weather reports indicated “significant rain bands and strong wind gusts during event set-up, with conditions highly likely to continue into Wednesday”.<\/p>\n
Kaiteriteri has postponed its New Year’s Eve fireworks display until early January, and entertainment at Picton’s foreshore has been cancelled with the fireworks to continue.<\/p>\n
Full list of weather warnings and watches<\/p>\n
Severe Thunderstorm Watch<\/p>\n
Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Waitomo, Taumarunui, Taranaki, Taihape, Wanganui, Manawatu, Tararua, Kapiti-Horowhenua, Wairarapa, Wellington \u2013 9 hours from 1pm to 10pm Wednesday<\/p>\n
Heavy Rain Warning \u2013 Orange<\/p>\n
Ranges of Tasman District west of Motueka \u2013 21 hours from 9am Wednesday to 6am Thursday<\/p>\n
Heavy Rain Watch<\/p>\n
Buller \u2013 16 hours from 11pm Wednesday to 3pm Thursday<\/p>\n
Richmond and Bryant ranges, including Rai Valley \u2013 24 hours from 9am Wednesday to 9am Thursday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A severe thunderstorm watch has been lifted for a large swathe of the North Island this New Year’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,9001,20277,42,91,43,1067,2224,1756,40,38,41,39,3393,52,1241],"class_list":["post-209600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-auckland","tag-hamilton-waikato","tag-hawke-s-bay","tag-headlines","tag-nelson","tag-news","tag-northland","tag-tasman","tag-tauranga-bay-of-plenty","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-weather-news","tag-wellington","tag-west-coast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209600","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=209600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}