{"id":214532,"date":"2026-01-03T08:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T08:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/214532\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T08:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T08:19:09","slug":"motorists-in-gisborne-urged-to-avoid-non-essential-travel-due-to-heavy-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/214532\/","title":{"rendered":"Motorists in Gisborne urged to avoid non-essential travel due to heavy rain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4NKCU6B_image_crop_70911.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"Car driving in heavy rain. Street flooding.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nMotorists in Gisborne are advised to avoid non-essential travel.<br \/>\nPhoto: mrtwister\/123RF\n<\/p>\n<p>Police are urging motorists in the Gisborne area to avoid non-essential travel due to heavy rain and surface flooding in the region.<\/p>\n<p>A severe thunderstorm warning is in place from Tolaga Bay to Gisborne and up to 170mm of rain is expected about the wider Gisborne region &#8211; ahead of 10am Sunday morning.<\/p>\n<p>A police spokesperson said several roads had been closed, including State Highway 35 between Wharf Road, just south of Tolaga Bay and Okitu.<\/p>\n<p>Heavy and persistent rainfall has caused flooding in the area, making it unsafe to access the road.<\/p>\n<p>There is no viable detour and drivers are asked to avoid the area.<\/p>\n<p>Police are asking drivers who must travel to use extreme care &#8211; drive to the conditions &#8211; and respect road closures.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/radionz.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=211a938dcf3e634ba2427dde9&amp;id=b3d362e693\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Motorists in Gisborne are advised to avoid non-essential travel. Photo: mrtwister\/123RF Police are urging motorists in the Gisborne&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-214532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214532","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=214532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}