The arrival of light rain is a timely reminder to check the guttering on the house.
We normally expect gutters to overflow when particularly heavy rain is falling, so it can come as a surprise when they do so during light summer showers.
The recent dry spell and associated strong winds have caused a surprising amount of debris to build up in house guttering this year. Chief amongst this is a staggering amount of silver birch seed. The silver birches have been seeding for several weeks, and the winds have dispersed the very light seeds from burst catkins very widely indeed.
During dry spells the seed collects in small drifts in house guttering. Silver birch seed is so light that it will float under very low water flows, creating dams and blockages in the house gutters. As the water builds up the seed begins floating and clumping together near downpipes causing blockages and overflows.
With light rain forecast for Saturday and Monday, Tawa residents would do well to check their gutters for debris buildup.