We were treated to one of those refreshing summer storms this morning, and commuters stuck in their cars during an accident-induced snarl-up had an entertaining diversion – watching nature “do her thing.”
The day started normally, with sunrise at 6 a.m. and commuters began taking to their cars for the commute into Wellington. At about 7 a.m. a truck accident occurred in the northbound lanes of the urban motorway, north of the Aotea Quay onramp, and the truck ended up crossing the median barrier and blocking some of the southbound lanes.
City-bound traffic began to build up and, by just after 8 a.m., traffic was backed up to Melling on SH2 and north of Tawa on SH1. Tawa commuters found traffic at a standstill trying to access both the motorway and the direct route to Johnsonville, Middleton Road, and were forced to join in as Main Road became a virtual carpark. Light levels began dropping as cloud lowered and thunderstorms rolled in while the rain started. By 9 a.m. it was very gloomy, and commuters in their halted vehicles were treated to a free fireworks display, as nature presented her pyrotechnics to the accompaniment of booms and rumbles.
In Tawa the wind changed to the east and thunder and lightning activity increased as the rain rate passed up from 3 mm/hr through 13 mm/hr to 19 mm/hr. At 9:35 the wind rose and began gusting from all points northward of west and east, the rain rate dropped and the sky began lightening again.
By 10 a.m. rain had eased still further and the traffic tailback began to slowly clear as the offending truck was cut away from the motorway barrier. One local commuter reported a one and three-quarter hour commute to work.
The Tawa weather station recorded 11 mm of rain between 8 and 10 this morning, 1 mm less than November’s total.
Other figures from around the region – Mana 6 mm, Whiby 7.8 mm and Lower Hutt 9 mm between 8 and 10 a.m. Lightning strikes reported at Whitby between 8 and 11 a.m. were 41, with 68 strikes reported at Lower Hutt.
Welcome to summer!
Wellington was not the only place to experience some wild weather today – in Taranaki, Austral Pacific Energy’s drilling rig on the Supplejack South-1 wellsite was hit by lightning this morning. Luckily these things are built tough, and the only victims seem to have been an ADSL router that lost its NVRAM setup, and some stressed staff in the IT support department as they tried to get wellsite roughnecks to troubleshoot computer problems!