Power has been restored to nearly 2000 properties plunged into darkness when torrential rain and thunderstorms lashed Auckland last night.
Electricity was cut to nearly 1800 homes in the north and west of the city last night.
Vector said 300 homes were affected in Whenuapai and Hobsonville and 500 homes in Sunnyvale. A further 1000 homes lost power in Sunnyvale earlier in the evening but have had power restored. A company spokeswoman said the problem was believed to be a transformer issue.
This morning the Vector website reported no current outages across the city.
The lights stayed on at the third and final Adele concert at Mt Smart Stadium, but fans were heavily rugged up as they were pelted with heavy rain. The singer made light of the weather, drying her hair with a towel and donning a spare pink poncho.
Last night's Auckland weather forecast was for heavy rain and thunderstorms, with a storm moving from Northland and Whangarei in a straight line down the country. Waikato, Waitomo, Bay of Plenty and the Coromandel Peninsula are also in the path of the bad weather, with the storm heading south.
Whangarei has had 42.2mm of rain over the past 24 hours, MetService meteorologist Philippa Murdoch said. Figures were not yet available for Auckland but earlier yesterday evening MetService was predicting 15.4mm of rain to fall before midnight.
At about 9.30pm the heaviest rain was over Auckland and was just starting to spread into the Coromandel, Murdoch said.
Moderate to heavy rain is falling over Auckland and Northland. Image/MetService
Fire communications shift manager Colin Underdown said two trees had fallen on cars in Stanley St carpark in Grafton, central Auckland. They were being removed with a chainsaw. Fire services had also been called to reports of flooding on a property in Mangawhai in Northland, Underdown said.
Heavy rain was expected to continue until early this morning in Northland and Auckland. It could also continue in Coromandel through till midday and until later in the afternoon in the Bay of Plenty.
Despite the heavy rain easing off, showers would continue throughout the day across most of the North Island. Inland areas especially had a moderate risk of thunderstorms this afternoon and evening, Murdoch said.
The storm comes just a fortnight since torrential rain lashed Auckland, causing severe flooding that swamped hundreds of homes.
A severe weather warning has also been put in place for parts of the South Island. Heavy rain overnight in Fiordland and Westland would cause rivers and streams to rise rapidly and may lead to surface flooding and slips, MetService said.
