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NZ slowly recovering from double devastation

Anthony Sharwood

Welcome sunshine is on its way for most parts of New Zealand after a devastating few days which included record rainfall and floods, and even an earthquake.

Tragically, four people have been killed in the latest NZ flooding disaster, as ex-Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle lashed the country.

This video loop from New Zealand’s National Insititute of Water and Atmospheric Research shows how the former tropical cyclone became a powerful subtropical storm which swept across the North Island, with heavy rain also reaching parts of the South Island.

This was the second major flooding event in New Zealand in the space of barely three weeks. In late January, a State of Emergency was declared for Auckland after around 300 mm of rain.

The saturated ground could take only so much, and numerous land slips and bridge collapses have occurred in this second bout of extreme weather, as a State of National Emergency was declared.

To make matter worse, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake jolted thousands of New Zealanders on Wednesday evening, with Wellington residents shaken hardest while northern parts of the South Island also experienced strong shaking. Fortunately, no serious damage or injuries have been reported.

Why do cyclones track so far south to New Zealand?

The northernmost part of NZ's South Island sits on roughly the same latitude as Tasmania, and as we all know, cyclones have never been recorded tracking that far south in eastern Australia.

Cyclones gain their strength from warm water, while land makes them lose fuel. Because of the shape of the Australian coastline, any cyclone that happens to track further south than usual would be extremely unlikely to track southwards to coastal areas beyond the "bump" of Australia's easternmost point of Cape Byron.

But there is only open ocean between the Coral Sea and northern New Zealand – give or take specks of land like Norfolk Island which thankfully missed the worst of TC Gabrielle.

So while cyclones typically lose their full force in the cooler waters near New Zealand, they are still likely to retain enough strength to do damage with wind and heavy rain. As a result, some phenomenal rainfall totals were recorded, as you can see below.

Meanwhile as mentioned at the top of the story, drying weather is on its way for NZ as a high pressure system moves across the Tasman Sea from eastern Australia. Today’s "emojicast" has a fair few rain emojis, but Friday's forecast should be mostly sunshine.

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