We have another tropical cyclone to monitor – Cyclone Cook is today tracking from southern parts of Vanuatu (bringing torrential rain) and towards New Caledonia (bring damaging winds and torrential rain).

The French island of New Caledonia is expected to be hit by Cook as a Category 3 cyclone, currently it’s Cat 2.

New Caledonia will be directly hit by Cook later on Monday and into Tuesday. Then Cook will turn towards New Zealand.

Vanuatu has already been hit by considerable flooding over the past day.

When we think of cyclones we tend to think of major wind and rain events however by the time they reach New Zealand more often than not it’s the rain that causes the bulk of the issues. Cook is not a very big cyclone sizewise – but it has a huge amount of moisture wrapped around it.

The concern WeatherWatch.co.nz has is that later next week Cook’s rain belt will connect with a sizeable low in the Tasman Sea pulling in very heavy rains which will be heavy enough to cause even further serious flooding in New Zealand, on top of the flooding we’ve seen over the past month or so.

To make matters worse the past few days the forecast models have shown a similar trend of heavy rain in the Edgecumbe/eastern Bay of Plenty area.  However a few more days are yet to go by before we can clearly see who will be impacted by this system, or if it might even slip closely past us without issues.

But more flooding rains are possible next week in New Zealand especially towards Thursday and Good Friday.

There’s some positive news – unlike Debbie it appears Cook might be smaller and faster moving, but in combination with another low in the Tasman Sea it’s one those potential set ups where if you live in a flood prone area or are an authority tasked with monitoring weather events this is one worthy of keeping an eye on.

Image – Track & threat map for Cyclone Cook as it slowly leaves Vanuatu and deepens as it heads towards New Caledonia / Fiji Met

– Image – Good Friday morning’s rain map shows ex-cyclone Cook small but potent near East Cape and potentially triggering heavier rains over eastern parts of the North Island, heavy enough to cause flooding and slips if this model pans out / Weathermap.

– WeatherWatch.co.nz