Weather: Heavy storm batters North Island, heavy rain ahead for lower South

A lightning storm above Auckland taken from Tamaki Drive looking towards the city. Photo / Richard Harri

By RNZ

Heavy rain and thunderstorms hit much of the North Island overnight, but the bad weather seemed to be receding as dawn broke.

In Auckland, the heavy rain stopped at around 5am.

MetService said all weather watches and warnings associated with the front – which brought heavy rain and strong winds overnight – had been lifted.

But strong westerlies persisted, with embedded fronts bringing rain to the lower South Island.

From midday, the Westland District, Fiordland and Otago could expect heavy rain, with a high chance of upgrading to warning level. There will also be northwest winds, which may approach severe gale in exposed places in Otago.

A lightning storm above Auckland. Photo / Richard Harri

In Northland, about 290 homes in the Raupo and Pouto areas were without power after lightning strikes. Northpower said engineers were working on the fault.

Vector’s outage map showed unplanned cuts in the far north of the Auckland region, around Pakiri and Wellsford, and in eastern parts of Waiheke Island.

In Wellington there was surface flooding in the central city on Saturday night, but the rain had since stopped.

Fallen trees across State Highway 6 between Inangahua and Lower Buller Gorge on the West Coast forced it to close.

A power outage was planned for Westport at about 11am to carry out emergency repairs after a lightning storm.