A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
It is perhaps unsurprising that as our wettest year on record since 1878 draws to a close, Tuesday should deliver one of the heaviest bursts of rain in living memory.
A massive raincloud swept over the city from the west, heralded by thunder, and hit the city with a sudden
“floodgate” deluge at 1.25pm.
As torrents of water overwhelmed gutters and waterfalls poured off every roof, a private rain gauge at Makaraka recorded 25 millimetres in just 10 minutes.
With the ground already soaked from successive rain events over the year, surface flooding started immediately.
Then, almost as happens in the topics, the rain suddenly stopped and at 1.43pm, blue sky and sun had roofs and lawns steaming, and instant lakes draining away.
