Good afternoon Cantabs, yes as if we haven’t had enough wet this year someone has gone and ordered more of it. Well a very quick summary this system is likely to bring some very high rainfall totals for many areas of the region, more so as mentioned already inland against the foothills and high country and about North Canterbury. Christchurch will not escape significant falls as we all well know it doesnt take more than 30mm to have significant flooding in the flood prone areas. There is still a fair amount of question on the general wind flow, if it remains more a E-SE or SE flow then the city might escape the worst of it with only 30-40mm falling over 2-3 days. If it is easterly or NE the activity will affect the city more greatly, thus bringing totals around 90-100mm in some areas over this duration. There are two main bulk rain events the first is from 6am tomorrow morning slowly easing off throughout the day and again from mid-morning on Tuesday lasting through until early Wednesday. There is still uncertainty as to the latter part of the week which we will hope is more settled. Due to the nature of this prolonged rainfall we advise people take the steps to prepare for potential flooding (if you are in a flood prone area i.e. the Flockton Basin around the Heathcote and Avon Rivers plus lower lying streets in the eastern suburbs). Seeing as local power... isnt doing much this is our heads up to the general public, early and in advance before you potentially have more issues with floods. All of us at CWU hope none of the mentioned above occurs, and you all stay warm safe dry and up to date with the latest forecasts, warnings from us and MetService. Also keep up to date with your local Civil Defence here cdemcanterbury.govt.nz. Thanks to Jason for sending this through to us... stay warm and safe! -Josh
Posted on: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 03:28:24 +0000