Two schools in the Eastern Bay of Plenty are closed this morning.
Te Wharekura o Ruatoki, a rural school in Ruatoki, is closed due to localised flooding, a staff member said.
It was a health and safety precaution as the roads usually flooded with heavy downpours and the school needed to ensure the safety of all students in the area and further out, he said.
Access to and from the school may be impacted by the heavy rain and “continual rain meant the flooding and risks were unpredictable.”
A GoBus spokesman said Tāneatua School, near Whakatāne, was the only school in its circuit closed today.
He said there were “issues” this morning on Stanley Rd with a tree that had come down but the driver managed to get the kids to school by going the other way.
The spokesman said the team was concerned about high tide this afternoon in the Ruatoki area with rising river waters, and they were currently making a plan around getting the students home safely. Low tide is around 10.30am and high tide is around 4.30pm.
He said one of the options was picking the children up earlier as drivers would not drive children through flooding.
Heavy rain watch in place
MetService warned the weather system could swing back westwards today and Rotorua Lakes Council says people living near waterways such as the Ngongotahā Stream should keep an eye on water levels.
A heavy rain watch remains in place for parts of Bay of Plenty east of Rotorua today as a feed of subtropical air moves southeastwards through the North Island.
A heavy rain warning has been issued for Bay of Plenty east of Te Kaha.
The storm arrived late Sunday morning and in 24 hours brought 42.9 millimetres of rain to Rotorua, with more rainfall forecast to hit overnight.
MetService duty meteorologist Dan Corrigan said that as of 3pm Monday the Bay of Plenty was “in the thick of it” as the band of heavy rain continued to move towards the East Cape.
Corrigan said the winds in the area, while “not awfully gusty”, have remained steady.
“Rotorua is quite breezy at the moment,” Corrigan told the Rotorua Daily Post.
Corrigan said average windspeeds for the region were 30-40km/h, with slower speeds being recorded inland.
MetService predicted a further 70-100mm of rain could fall overnight on Monday with peak rates of 10-20mm/h possible in the western Bay of Plenty.
The highest rainfalls had been recorded in the Coromandel, which received 81mm of rainfall in the 24 hours to 3pm on Monday. The Pinnacles Hut in the Coromandel Range recorded 278mm of rainfall in the same period.
“Whakatāne has only seen the rain picking up now,” Corrigan said.
“They’ve had 24.8mm so far and it’s expected to ramp up a bit.”
Corrigan said the heavy rain was expected to stall near the East Cape on Wednesday night before moving back west.
“We could see more heavy rain in the western Bay of Plenty later in the week,” Corrigan said.
“There’s a fair bit of uncertainty about its backward path but our weather forecasters will be evaluating that in the coming days as we get more up-to-date observations.”
Corrigan said predicting the path of the storm depended on many factors, including where and how winds met or diverged in the atmosphere and the amount of water vapour in the rising air.
Rotorua Lakes Council issued a statement on its website just before 3pm stating it was “actively monitoring” the weather conditions, with staff and contractors on standby to respond to any issues.
It warned that a period of heavy rain was also possible for late Tuesday and Wednesday.
There had been no reports of flooding, slips or trees down as of 3pm, and no issues observed at Rotorua’s waterways.
“But as with any adverse weather conditions, residents are encouraged to be aware and to be prepared to act if that becomes necessary,” the statement said.
“Residents living near waterways such as the Ngongotahā Stream are encouraged to stay alert to rising water levels and as a precaution, to be prepared to evacuate if that were to become necessary.”
Meanwhile, State Highway 2 was closed through the Karangahake Gorge due to slips first reported about 12.55pm.
The gorge highway reopened under stop/go management on Monday evening.
