The flooding comes after another North Island highway was blocked by a fallen tree earlier this morning. <\/p>\n
NZTA said SH57 at Aokautere, in Manawat\u016b, was blocked near the intersection with the Pah\u012batua Track, with emergency services at the scene at 6am.<\/p>\n
The road has since reopened. <\/p>\n
MetService said heavy rain was forecast for parts of Otago, with North Otago, Dunedin and Clutha under a heavy rain watch until 4pm today.<\/p>\n
MetService meteorologist Devlin Lynden said further heavy rain was possible around Wairoa and northern Bay of Plenty tomorrow, with strong winds around Wellington and the coast south of Taranaki.<\/p>\n
\u201cGenerally speaking, the worst of the rain should have moved on by Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, temperatures are set to plummet by as much as 16C as a chilly blast of Southern Ocean air drags up the country.<\/p>\n
Hastings reached 28C yesterday but is forecast to reach just 12C tomorrow, while Gisborne is expected to drop from 25C to 12C over the same period.<\/p>\n
Lynden told the Herald a cold front was moving north, with a \u201csoutherly kick\u201d bringing much colder air behind it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat wind is coming from right down in the Southern Ocean … That will mean some cooler temperatures for the South Island again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dunedin is forecast to reach 10C today, as are Queenstown and W\u0101naka. Alexandra has an expected high of 11C. <\/p>\n
The North Island will remain relatively warm today, with temperatures in the high teens and low 20s, before the cold southerly change arrives tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Snow could fall on higher South Island roads today, including the Crown Range, Arthur\u2019s Pass and the Lewis Pass. However, Lynden said significant snowfall was unlikely.<\/p>\n
He warned motorists to keep a close eye on the forecast, particularly those travelling through the central North Island tomorrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is the potential for snow to low levels, about 800m, which would definitely impact the Desert Road.\u201d<\/p>\n
A ridge of high pressure is expected to bring more settled conditions over the weekend, though temperatures will remain cool. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019ll see southerly winds continue, but it will see winds generally ease through the weekend and more fine spells,\u201d Lynden said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019d expect many places, certainly by Sunday, to see some more fine breaks.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Gisborne, Hawke\u2019s Bay and Wairarapa could remain cloudy and chilly as southerly winds persist.<\/p>\n
Frost is possible in parts of the Central Plateau and inland South Island on Friday or Saturday morning. <\/p>\n
Lynden said the temperature extremes were \u201cjust the general swing of the weather\u201d, typical of spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The flooding comes after another North Island highway was blocked by a fallen tree earlier this morning. NZTA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11730,806,260113,45290,3595,5201,5346,19876,121901,42,6559,26755,4508,296,2514,92640,130,43,529,17711,35787,6560,171602,159410,45291,40,38,41,39,45293,102,80],"class_list":["post-630863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-afternoon","tag-as","tag-awakino","tag-blast","tag-by","tag-closed","tag-expected","tag-flooding","tag-gorge","tag-headlines","tag-heavy","tag-highway","tag-hits","tag-into","tag-island","tag-lashes","tag-more","tag-news","tag-north","tag-parts","tag-plunges","tag-rain","tag-sh3","tag-swamped","tag-temps","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-wintry","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630863","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=630863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}