Heavy rain in the southern part of the Wellington region overnight has caused surface flooding and kept the Fire Service busy.
The rain event began in earnest late last night, Wednesday 30th April 2008, after 13 mm of rain had already fallen in Tawa. During the half hour to 10:00 p.m. a further 15 mm fell, with the rain rate reaching a whopping 60 mm per hour just before 10 o’clock. By midnight, 28 mm had been recorded for the day.
To 9 o’clock this morning, Thursday May 1st, another 41 mm has fallen, bringing the total for the weather event to 69 mm. The rain fell at a heavy rate, peaking at a maximum rate of 36 mm/hr at 2:08 a.m. Surface flooding was reported at Tawa, Johnsonville and in the Hutt Valley, and the Fire Service has been kept busy dealing with minor flooding events and false fire alarms.
Rain is expected to continue this morning, easing to showers and then becoming fine this afternoon. With rain easing, it is unlikely that this event will pass the previous record daily rain total for Tawa which was 48 mm recorded on the 5th of July 2006
Interim analysis shows that 100 mm of rain was recorded at Tawa during April 2008, more than half of which fell on three days (the 5th, 29th and 30th.) This is the wettest April since the automatic weather station began recordings in 2005. Previous April rainfall totals for Tawa were: 35 mm in 2005, 82 mm in 2006 and 54 mm in 2007.