Red warning as the rain keeps coming

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

A record wet first half of the year for this region is getting wetter and while everyone is well and truly over the continual rain, hearts are again going out to those most affected — especially the people of Te Karaka who were evacuating their homes yesterday, and East Coast residents in the firing line for the most rain once more.

The past few days have seen 200mm of rain for much of the region, more for northern parts of the Coast, with about half of that over the 24 hours to midday yesterday.

Communities were isolated again, with both SH2 north and SH35 closed yesterday afternoon, and the council reporting 30 local roads were closed by slips and flooding.

MetService started updating its heavy rain warning on Wednesday night as it became apparent there would be more rain over a longer period, with the “severe weather warning” extended through to midday on Sunday. Yesterday afternoon MetService lifed its warning to the most serious red level, forecasting an additional 200-300mm of rain about and north of Tolaga Bay through to Sunday, 100-150mm about the ranges further south, and 50-100mm  about coastal areas south of Tolaga Bay.

Later the Mayor delcared a state of emergency for the region.

Te Karaka residents were advised to evacuate their homes early yesterday afternoon when the Waipaoa River level reached 7.3 metres. Tairāwhiti Civil Defence said anyone living by a river who had concerns should evacuate during daylight hours.

Gisborne city and surrounding areas have had 1156mm of rain and counting since the start of this year — well over the 30-year average annual rainfall for Gisborne of 999.8mm, and we are not even halfway through 2023.

The 30-year average for the month of June is 97mm; at 2pm yesterday we were at 235mm for the month.

As Roger Handford wrote in a recent article comparing the first five months of the year to our historical records, there is nothing close to the 921.4mm rainfall total for January-May of 2023.

The next highest rainfall for the same period was recorded at Gisborne’s harbour in 1924, with a five-month total of 873.4mm. Next was 815.3mm over the first five months of 1911, then 806.7mm in 1883.

The 450mm that fell in February 2023, including the deluge from Cyclone Gabrielle, was only surpassed by a remarkable 512.1mm recorded at the harbour for March 1910; that also involved a sub-tropical cyclone, like this year’s cyclones Hale and Gabrielle. One resident recorded 438mm over the four days of that storm in 1910.

Let’s hope this latest weather event delivers less rain than forecast, and the taps then finally turn off and we get more normal weather for the rest of the year — and an actual summer.