Sun sneaks back for weekend

The house in Rona Bay, Eastbourne, pushed off its piles by a slip. Picture / Mark Mitchell

A cold but sunny weather forecast this weekend should provide some respite from the wintry conditions that brought flooding and landslides to the lower North Island yesterday and again blanketed parts of the South Island in snow.

Up to 10cm settled around Queenstown's Wakatipu basin, while flurries and lighter falls decorated Dunedin, the Port Hills and Banks Peninsula near Christchurch and the Tararua Ranges north of Wellington.

The morning skies in Wellington greeted residents with rain, spurts of hail and wind gusts up to 130km/h.

In Wellington, a slip pushed a house 1.5m from its foundations and left it poised over five other houses. The damaged property will have to be demolished, says the Hutt City Council. A torrent of debris hit the back of the unoccupied house on Thursday night, shunting it from its position on a bush-covered hillside in Rona Bay, Eastbourne.

Twenty-five houses below it were evacuated, and five families were barred last night from returning home.

Rain and flooding revisited Carterton and South Wairarapa and Masterton just a fortnight after heavy falls struck the region.

Three Masterton families were still out of their homes yesterday because of sewage contamination.

MetService forecaster Allister Gorman said 250mm of rain had fallen in Masterton so far this month, more than twice the monthly average and well in excess of the previous July high of 176mm.

In South Wairarapa, 340mm had fallen this month, more than three times the July average.

But relief was in sight, Mr Gorman said. "Conditions are easing everywhere and by [today], there'll be a few showers on the south coast of the South Island, and maybe in the Hawkes Bay and Gisborne areas, and the top of Northland.

"Most other areas should have a fine start to the weekend, sunny skies, winds dying, but temperatures will be very cold.

"We should have more settled conditions into the middle of next week."

Metservice severe weather forecaster Erick Brenstrum agreed things were looking brighter for the Wairarapa and Canterbury areas.

"Those places have seen the last of it for a while," he said.

However, the bottom of the South Island could have cold weather with the southwesterly for a few more days.

Mr Brenstrum said the Auckland region was looking at mostly fine weather for the weekend.

Southerly winds could bring the odd frost in the morning but the wind was expected to change to a southwesterly with isolated showers.

Mainly fine weather was expected tomorrow but there would be a few showers and the southwesterlies would remain.

Meanwhile, most landslides from Thursday night in the Wanganui region had been cleared, but SH4 to Raetihi was likely to be closed overnight. State Highway 56 at Opiki was also closed due to flooding.

Windy conditions continued to hamper repair work at the collapsed Ngaturi Bridge where a flying fox is to be built to deliver mail across the Mangawhero River.

* Outlook for the All Blacks test in Wellington: Fine, dry, 6C to 9C, light northwesterly winds.