Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle - Heavy Rain Wind Warnings across North Island

[JennyLeez]

Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle: Heavy rain and wind warnings in place across North Island; Rain hits Northland, Auckland, Coromandel; Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay among regions facing impacts.

• 19 severe weather warnings and watches in place.
• Heavy rain and strong winds warnings upgraded to red alert for Northland, Auckland, Coromandel and Gisborne
• Power outages reported across parts of Northland and Auckland
• Coromandel residents have been urged to consider evacuating early - the region is under the heaviest red rain warning
• Speed and lane restrictions imposed on Auckland Harbour Bridge

Auckland and Coromandel are under MetService’s highest severe weather warnings possible as Cyclone Gabrielle tracks closer to New Zealand bringing strong winds and heavy rain.

MetService upgraded 19 severe weather warnings and watches on Sunday morning, issuing red warnings for both heavy rain and strong winds for Auckland and Coromandel.

Red heavy rain warnings are in place for Northland and Gisborne, while orange warnings for heavy rain and strong winds are active for most other regions across the North Island.

“Gabrielle has lost its tropical characteristics, this doesn’t mean it is weaker,” MetService said on Sunday morning. “It will be a very intense system as it moves closer to our shores in the coming days. Widespread severe weather is forecast with the worst expected on Monday/Tuesday.”

Transport agency Waka Kotahi said it had imposed speed and lane restrictions on the harbour bridge on Sunday morning “due to severe wind gusts”. “Extra care is required for all vehicles. High-sided vehicles and motorcycles please consider delaying your journey or detour via SH18/SH16 (Western Ring Route).”

A 133km/h gust has already hit Cape Reinga this morning.

In a social media post this morning, Auckland Emergency Management said residents should consider evacuating early if they are in flood-prone or isolated areas. Officials have also asked residents to ensure no further flood-damaged items are placed on kerbs - and that any already there after recent flooding should be secured, so they don’t cause additional hazards over the next two days.

Latest Map for Sunday the 12th February 2023



Source: NZ Herald & Weatherzone AU

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[JennyLeez]

Cyclone Gabrielle: Auckland, Coromandel, Northland and Gisborne under highest severe weather warnings; tree topples on Mangawhai home; thousands without power.

Thousands of properties are without power across parts of Northland and Auckland and lines company says people need to prepared for days without power.
Coromandel residents have been urged to consider evacuating early - the region is under the heaviest red rain warning.

The worst is yet to come. That’s the message MetService wants to get across as 20 severe weather warnings and watches were upgraded for the North Island this morning as Cyclone Gabrielle tracks closer to New Zealand.

Thousands of homes across Northland and Auckland are without power and one lines company has told customers to be prepared for prolonged outages.

“Some properties may be without power for days if damage is severe,” Counties Energy said.

Seas have become rough in Whangārei Heads as Cyclone Gabrielle nears.



Cyclone Gabrielle – Click here for Live updates from from The New Zealand Herald.


Map UPDATED:



Source: NZ Herald & Weatherzone AU

[Mark]

The Government will leave it to schools to decide whether to close as Cyclone Gabrielle approaches New Zealand.

“Boards and principals are in the best position to decide when it is safe for on-site teaching and learning,” the ministry’s chief executive and secretary for education Iona Holsted said on Sunday.”

This decision will be left with schools to communicate with communities.

Holsted said she had received “regular updates and situation analysis from our staff on the ground, as well as emergency management operations across the motu”.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300805050/individual-schools-to-decide-whether-to-close-as-cyclone-gabrielle-approaches

[JennyLeez]

Gabrielle is likely to squash local sea level pressure to the lowest values ever observed in New Zealand – one of several indicators the incoming ex-tropical cyclone will be packing plenty of power as it rolls through over the next three days.

Its wind-making potential - already being demonstrated with gusts higher than 140km/h at Cape Reinga - may also be worsened by the formation of a scorpion tail-like feature called a “sting jet”.

Record-breaking pressure.

Overnight, Niwa scientists calculated that Gabrielle could break mean sea-level pressure (MSLP) records in or near New Zealand early on Tuesday.

As Niwa meteorologist Ben Noll explained: “The tighter the pressure-packing, the stronger the winds, the more intense the weather.”

Just as it sounded, MSLP measured atmospheric pressure at mean sea level.

In weather reports and TV forecasts, it’s represented through isobars joining together areas with the same MSLP (or weight per square area of the air above) and sometimes indicated in pressure-measuring units called hectoPascals (hPa).

Winds tended to blow directly along these isobars, and the closer they were grouped together, the stronger those winds would be.

Tightly-aligned circles of isobars of course denoted low pressure systems, which acted like giant funnels of winds spiralling inward and upwards, forcing warmer air in the centre to rise, before cooling and creating cloud.

In moderate low pressure systems, hPas dropped from a standard 1013hPa to between 1000hPA and 980hPa – while deep or intense lows associated with heavy storms carried values below 980hPa.

Early on Tuesday, Gabrielle’s minimum central pressure could plummet as low as 961hPa.

While there has been several cases of pressure levels falling to around 970hPa in some 170 years of records, local values forecast for Gabrielle appeared to be unprecedented.

Source: The New Zealand Herald Online

[Mark]

Found this re-air pressure record.
 
The great storm of 1868

Barometric pressure
Barometric pressure recorded at Auckland on the 3 February was 955hPA.[4] Blenheim and New Plymouth recorded a minimum of about 968hPA during this event. At Nelson the barometer fell from 30.10 deg to 20.60 deg in 24 hours. Barometric pressure on the West Coast fell to 980hPA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_storm_of_1868

[JennyLeez]

Cyclone Gabrielle tracking closer to Auckland.

Cyclone Gabrielle’s impacts are already being felt across much of the upper North Island, even as it sits roughly 250km north of Cape Reinga.

Tens of thousands of homes are without power across Northland and Auckland as severe wind gusts and rain lash the upper northern region.

The weather system poses a “very high risk of extreme, impacted and unprecedented weather” over many regions of the North Island through to Tuesday.

MetService meteorologist Alwyn Bakker​ said the former tropical cyclone system was sitting a couple of hundred kilometres almost directly north of Great Barrier Island, as of 9am on Monday.

Over the next 24 hours, forecasters are expecting it to come closer to Great Barrier – just shy of 100km from Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) – before it would start heading southeast, towards the Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and eventually to Gisborne.

Source: stuff.co.nz

Headlines from the  NZ Herald.

30 severe weather warnings and watches in place across the country.
States of emergency in Auckland, Northland, Coromandel, Gisborne, Ōpōtiki.
About 58,000 homes are without power, up to a week before power restored to some areas.
All Auckland trains cancelled and almost every school is shut, as residents urged to stay home.
Air NZ domestic flights in and out of Auckland and multiple international flights cancelled; flights through other northern regional airports also canned.
Damage already felt across Northland.

Cyclone Gabrielle – Click here for Live updates from from The New Zealand Herald.

Current Maps:






Tuesdays Forecast:



Source: Wairoa.net & Weatherzone AU

[JennyLeez]

Families on the East Coast have evacuated to the nearest shelters as floodwaters start to rise ahead of Cyclone Gabrielle unleashing a deluge of rain in the coming 24 hours.

Those living in the Gisborne region, which is currently under a red heavy rain warning, are on edge just weeks after the district was slammed by Cyclone Hale.

A state of emergency has been declared for the region for the next seven days.

The seaside community of Anaura Bay north of Tolaga Bay is bracing for today’s high tide as State Highway 35 starts to flood.

Resident Hera Ngata-Gibson told the Herald they had had steady rain since yesterday afternoon. And today the sea looked very full, hours ahead of high tide.

“Wind gusts are picking up. There’s some surface flooding between Mangatuna and Tokomaru Bay on SH35.

“Our little community is as prepared as it can be.”

 The Mangaheia River was lapping the top of Wigan bridge on Tauwhareparae Road, which is usually a precursor to the river blocking and flooding.



Other bridges were looking similarly precarious, with huge piles of woody debris still lining their banks from Cyclone Hale now being washed into rivers.

Latest Map:



Source: NZ Herald & Weatherzone AU

[Mark]

Gale-force southerly winds and heavy rain are forecast to hit the capital as Cyclone Gabrielle is set to track down central Aotearoa, with warnings of power outages in the region.

The entire North Island was under weather warnings as the cyclone approached the motu bringing heavy rain on Monday, triggering a state of emergency in Tairāwhiti.

The Wellington City Council urged people in the city to prepare as the worst of the weather for the region is expected to hit overnight into Tuesday.

“While the latest forecasts indicate that the impact will not be too severe for Wellington city, strong wind gusts could damage trees, powerlines and unsecured structures,” the council said.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/131214028/wellingtonians-urged-to-prepare-as-cyclone-gabrielle-set-to-pass-over-central-nz

[Sheldybett]

The Southern South Island got spared the worst

[Mark]

NEWS FROM JENNY

I am down at civil defence. We have no internet. No cell phone. Limited power and water. No petrol. Very little food. Supermarket has bare shelves.  thankfully I am stocked up.
Half our town flooded. River broke its banks with heavy flow and slash from forestry. Can blame the forestry for the devastation on the east coast. Bridges gone. Slash just hit and wiped them out. For us the water came from up top. Roads just gone but have a lane through to gisborne now but no petrol. Hundreds lost there homes vehicles  its tragic. Many people missing. Army now here. Helicopters everywhere. Not good.
I will come back 2morrow.

Jenny.

[JennyLeez]

Hi all,
I am not going to say much as you have heard it all on the news.
Not the best week of my life but I was luckier than hundreds of others. We were not in the flooded areas. Being prepared helped with stocked cupboards, candles, torches etc. Also having a gas stove and gas hot water made things a bit easier at the being when all services were down. Pity our Civil Defense team had not listened to the warnings and also been prepared

It is impossible to explain the devastation Cyclone Gabby created. It was not so much the water piling into our rivers that has created the loss of bridges, roads, homes, vehicles and lives but the slash from the forestry. Water does not take out bridges. Huge logs and branches do.
We have all been pretty peed off since Bola 1988 when the slash took out our main bridge. Yet all was swept under the carpet and ignored. Well there is no ignoring now. We are all pretty hostile over here. Half our town was flooded. Homes destroyed. Families lost everything. Families homeless. Pets dead. Many humans still unaccounted for.

Below is few photos taken locally. A couple with the before and after to give you a better idea.

Wairoa Bridge Normal.



Wairoa Bridge During



Wairoa River Normal



Wairoa River During



Wairoa River During



Wairoa River After



Wairoa North side



Wairoa North side



Wairoa North side



Wairoa North side looking across the bridge to the south side.



This what Slash looks like and what it does. Look how high it came up.






This is Puterino. This is the bridge that has cut links between Napier and Wairoa.






and this is my daughter who came across from Hamilton to help. This was taken along one of the roads where her crew was shoveling.

[ato2]

I so agree with your comments about the slash. It is a time bomb for so many communities. Even here, in Taranaki, truck and trailers, carrying logs roll past just three streets away from me, head down to Port Taranaki...every 2 mins, I was told.
The mess is left behind in the hinterland...we aren't as vulnerable as the East Coast but it still isn't right.
Happens overseas, too. Madness.
 In the end, it is people and communities that pay the price of ill - considered logging regulations.
Great- we can grow the trees and do well financially from it - but - deal with the slash on the spot, not later on at huge cost when it ends up miles away!