Heavy rain warning in place

Update 11 April 2024

The Heavy Rain Warnings and Strong Wind Watch from MetService remain in place and the rainfall amounts and intensities in the advice are unchanged.

This means we continue to advise that main river flows around annual flood level are likely for Golden Bay rivers (Aorere/Tākaka) with peak times in the lower catchment likely to be prior to midnight.

For the Riwaka/Brooklyn area, we are not expecting high flows, rivers draining the lower western Motueka hills being well below annual flood level.

However we are seeing some increased intensities forecast for the southern end of the Richmond Ranges, affecting the Wairoa/Waimea River. So here we expect to get at least annual floods and perhaps up to a 5-year flood. It would be prudent to extend this to anywhere along the Richmond Ranges, so would include the Maitai River in this advice also.

Peak flows in lower catchments in these areas are likely to be after midnight, possibly between 2-4am. An annual flood should be well contained within the active channel of the river, whilst a 5-year flood in these areas would be likely to be well across all river berms.

No thunderstorms are forecast in this front, but there could still be isolated heavy downpours in any of these areas causing impacts for small streams.

For the rest of the Tasman District, some isolated heavy falls may occur, but rainfall totals are lower, around 50-80mm.

There is a high tide (4.4m) at midnight and also strong winds for this time, so likely to be some waves set up from this. However storm surge risk is likely to be low as this is not associated with low air pressure from this system.

Keep up to date with the latest MetService warnings here(external link).