{"id":582690,"date":"2026-08-28T06:02:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T06:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/582690\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T06:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T06:02:14","slug":"flooding-hits-queenstown-rain-set-to-batter-upper-north-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/582690\/","title":{"rendered":"Flooding hits Queenstown, rain set to batter upper North Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

A series of new rain watches are in place for the upper North Island as a front that brought rain and snow to the south slowly moves over the country. <\/p>\n

A period of heavy rain is expected for Northland, Auckland, the Coromandel and Bay of Plenty tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Heavy rain watches are in place for Northland, Auckland, Great Barrier Island, the Coromandel Peninsula and Bay of Plenty about, west, and east of the Rangitaiki River. <\/p>\n

The Ranges of the Buller district were still under an orange rain warning. <\/p>\n

Strong wind watches were issued for Wairarapa south of Masterton, Wellington, the Marlborough Sounds, and the Canterbury High Country.<\/p>\n

MetService head of weather news Heather Keats told Breakfast a low-pressure system would move over the North Island tomorrow. <\/p>\n

“We’re talking heavy rain for the whole upper North Island \u2013 Northland, Auckland, Coromandel, Bay of Plenty to Gisborne as that tracks across.<\/p>\n

“So tomorrow is a bit of a write-off. Sunday does look better.”<\/p>\n

Queenstown mops up<\/p>\n

\"Crews<\/p>\n

Crews work to clean up after flooding in Queenstown. (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

In Queenstown, Mayor John Glover told Breakfast around 45 people were evacuated overnight. It followed 48 hours of “pretty solid rain”. <\/p>\n

A Civil Defence welfare hub was established to support residents in need. <\/p>\n

“They’ll hopefully be getting back to their properties later on today,” Glover said. <\/p>\n

Drivers were asked to avoid One Mile roundabout and Gorge Road if they could.<\/p>\n

“Please drive with extreme care today and avoid driving through any flood waters.” <\/p>\n

A conserve water notice was in place for Fernhill, Sunshine Bay, Queenstown CBD, and Frankton Road. <\/p>\n

MetService said the front began moving north overnight, while severe northwest gales were expected to affect some parts of central New Zealand today. <\/p>\n

Glover said the rain was now easing and there were blue skies in Queenstown. <\/p>\n

“It will take a while to drain away. Be patient. There will be traffic queues as ever,” he said. <\/p>\n

State Highway 6 between Makarora and Lake H\u0101wea in Otago is closed morning because of a slip. <\/p>\n

Full list of weather warnings and watches<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The current weather warnings in place. (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

Heavy Rain Warning \u2013 Orange<\/p>\n

Ranges of the Buller district \u2013 5 hours from 9am to 2pm Friday.<\/p>\n

Heavy Rain Watch<\/p>\n

Northland \u2013 18 hours from 4am to 10pm Saturday.<\/p>\n

Auckland, Great Barrier Island and Coromandel Peninsula \u2013 15 hours from 9am to midnight Saturday.<\/p>\n

Coromandel Peninsula and Bay of Plenty about and west of Rangitaiki River \u2013 12 hours from noon to midnight Saturday.<\/p>\n

Bay of Plenty east of Rangitaiki River \u2013 12 hours from 3pm Saturday to 3am Sunday.<\/p>\n

Strong Wind Watch<\/p>\n

Wairarapa south of Masterton, Wellington and the Marlborough Sounds \u2013 11 hours from 9am to 8pm Friday.<\/p>\n

Canterbury High Country \u2013 6 hours from 11am to 5pm Friday.<\/p>\n

The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including the investigation into an Auckland double homicide, and why Donald Trump\u2019s trying to rename a lake. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A series of new rain watches are in place for the upper North Island as a front that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1080,111,43,139,69,6563],"class_list":["post-582690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-dunedin-otago","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-storms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582690","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=582690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}