Roads flooded, lines downed - but Debbie's worst bypasses Northland

Floodwaters thunder over Haruru Falls on the Waitangi River near Paihia yesterday. Photo / Peter de Graaf

Cyclone Debbie's tail has been giving much of the North Island a lashing - but as of edition time yesterday Northland had escaped fairly lightly.

Further flooding and slips were possible overnight, however, with more high-intensity, short-duration rain expected and high tide on the east coast about 3.30am today, Northland Civil Defence spokeswoman Victoria Randall said.

The cyclone claimed lives and caused widespread destruction when it hit Queensland on March 28 but by the time its remnants reached Northland on Tuesday night damage was limited to surface flooding, slips and downed power lines.

Other parts of the North Island weren't so lucky with the Fire Service fielding 200 calls for help across Auckland and the Waikato, and states of emergencies declared in Whanganui and Rangitikei.

Northland firefighters had just three weather-related callouts on Tuesday night in Kamo, Maungatapere and Waipu. A number of roads were closed or partly blocked, particularly around Pakotai and Pipiwai northwest of Whangarei. At 4pm yesterday Pipiwai Rd, Moore Rd and Karaka Rd were still impassable due to flooding.

Pakotai School closed yesterday when its nine pupils were unable to get to school.

The Whangarei and Kaipara districts copped the worst of the rainfall with Tara, east of Mangawhai, recording 146mm in the 30 hours to 6am yesterday. Poroti received 131mm and the hills east of Ngunguru 127mm.

MetService reported severe thunderstorms over the Mokohinau Islands around 1pm but a Coastguard spokeswoman said boaties had heeded the weather warnings and no incidents had been reported.

Northpower spokesman Steve MacMillan said a large branch in powerlines at Morningside knocked out power to more than 500 Whangarei households at 1.20am yesterday for up to two hours.

About 3am bamboo took down lines at Maungatapere, initially cutting power to almost 600 customers. All had their power restored within five hours.

In the Far North power lines came down at Rawene and Pokapu. The Pokapu outage, near Moerewa, was caused by a slip taking out a series of power poles.

Far North Civil Defence co-ordinator Bill Hutchinson said the rainfall followed a similar pattern to the March 10 weather event with heavy localised downpours causing short-lived flooding in the "usual suspect areas" such as the bottom of Bulls Gorge on State Highway 10 and Taheke Bridge on SH12.

"We probably got off reasonably lightly compared to down south," he said.

Meanwhile, the weather also caused headaches for the organisers of Pa Henare Tate's tangi yesterday. More than 1000 mourners were expected to farewell the highly regarded priest at Motuti, an isolated North Hokianga settlement.

MetService forecaster Brian Mercer said Northlanders could expect much better weather today with just a few showers in the west, and a drop in humidity as the tropical air mass started to move away. Humidity in Whangarei yesterday was 96 per cent and in Kerikeri 98 per cent.