UPDATED 4:12pm Saturday. Headlines:

• 733mm recorded in 2 days in the mountains inland from Hokitika.
• Civil Defence has ordered Mandatory Evacuations in Westport
• Evacuations in Marlborough, Buller and Tasman (please visiting National Emergency Management Agency (Civil Defence) for the full list of evacuations.
• Slips and flooding closes roads in Wellington
• Slips and flooding closes roads across Nelson, Tasman, Marlborough and surrounds.
• West Coast highways closed.
• Worst of the weather easing by this evening and tonight – but more pockets of severe weather into Sunday too.

Torrential rain continues in parts of NZ with the high altitude locations in the South Island clocking up well over half a metre of rain, with a number of locations recording 600 to 733mm according to the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research.

Heavy rain is spilling over into Nelson and Marlborough causing flooding in some locations and Wellington too.

Gales have impacted a large portion of exposed parts of the North Island but should ease back later this afternoon and evening.

IBM / WeatherWatch Accuracy:
Earlier this week, using IBM’s super computer Watson, WeatherWatch.co.nz was able to specifically pinpoint Westport, Tasman/Nelson, Marlborough and Wellington as high risk areas for slips, flooding and possible wind damage. We mentioned this in our daily weather videos across the week and in our daily news stories/outlooks. That hyper-local IBM detailed forecast data can be freely found at www.RuralWeather.co.nz and WeatherWatch.co.nz for you to view anytime.

In our view, MetService has done an excellent job issuing warnings for this event, in particular the red warning for parts of the South Island now impacted by extreme rainfall and flooding.

Some of our tweets from today plus our latest weather video (recorded Friday).