Hey Josh, yes what an amazing turn around for Auckland and other western/northern parts of the North Island. The severe weather warnings that were issued by MetService did talk of rain totals that would clearly cause areas of slips and flooding. The shape of our valleys and ranges means every rain event will flood in different ways. This event always had some uncertainty to it since 12 hours before it became a storm the low barely existed. (as opposed to forecasting something we can already see for days tracking towards us). The NZ Government has a problem with communication in these events because they’ve allowed Niwa to commercialise severe weather events with very big headlines, and Civil Defence has been disorganised for over a decade because they keep trying to reinvent the wheel rather than look to the private sector that already has alerting capabilities. Basically too many chiefs in Wellington and too many CEOs in agencies wanting to control things in their power circle. Could so easily be fixed.
Cheers
Phil D

Hi Sharen, thank you for the very kind support 🙂 It’s much appreciated.
Philip Duncan