Wettest Day in Four Years

The remnants of tropical cyclone Innis brought heavy rain to Tawa yesterday, making it the wettest day in at least four years.

Saturday 21st February 2009

Steady rain began falling in Tawa at about 5 o’clock Friday morning, the rain rate steadily increasing as the commuter hours began. By 8 a.m. Tawa Weather had recorded 17 mm of rain, and traffic on the urban motorway slowed to a crawl as surface water made driving conditions treacherous.

Rain was heavy all morning and only began to ease after 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Drizzle, low cloud and mist occupied the vale of Tawa and, by midnight, 54 mm of rain had been recorded for the day.

Yesterday’s rainfall brings the total for February 2009 to 110 mm, so far. This includes the heavy rain event of Thursday the 12th when 41 mm was recorded. Having started out dry (only 10 mm of rain had been recorded at Tawa up until midnight on the 11th), February 2009 has now become the wettest February since the automatic weather station was commissioned at the beginning of 2005. 32 mm of rain was recorded during February 2005, 69 mm the following year; with 25 mm and 50 mm recorded for February 2007 and 2008 respectively.

Prior to yesterday’s event, the wettest day in Tawa (since the station was commissioned) was the 5th of July 2006 when 48 mm of rain was recorded. Other records remain untouched, however. The heaviest rain in 1 hour was recorded on the 5th of January 2005 when 41 mm fell around 11 p.m. Fortunately the rain did not persist on that occasion.

Comparison with nearby Redwood Weather is not possible as the station is still off-line after a component failure on December 14th. Mana Weather (near Plimmerton) reports 42 mm from the Innis event yesterday, bringing their monthly total to 89 mm.

Leave a Reply