A MetService meteorologist says sufficient rain has fallen in Fiordland over the past 24 hours to fill 800,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools because the West Coast is taking a beating nowadays.
An Emergency Coordination Centre at the West Coast Regional Council has been installed with the total workforce to monitor the massive weather machine moving through the area.
The cold front presently shifting up the U.S. has mixed with warm air to produce what MetService meteorologist Lisa Murray calls a “sizeable” quantity of rain.
“Even by way of West Coast standards, that is a genuinely enormous occasion,” Ms. Murray advised 1 NEWS. “500 to 700 millimeters of rain are anticipated in the West Coast tiers.
“That’s vast, seeing as we positioned out intense weather warnings for a hundred millimeters of rain in 24 hours, so there is quite a piece greater than that.”
The rain has closed State Highway 6 from Hokitika to Makarora because of slips, and South Westland Area School has also been closed for the day.
Ms. Murray talked about some of the vast numbers coming from the front.
“If we look at Milford Sound, for instance, the station there recorded a one-in-20-12 months event, so there is quite a considerable quantity of rain already, and there are huts and DOC websites in that vicinity that recorded 300 millimeters daily.
“The quantity of rainfall recorded in Fiordland already could fill 800,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools,” she said.
There may be plenty of rain nonetheless, but it will fall on the West Coast, consistent with Ms. Murray.
“For the West Coast, the worst of this rain will be up till nighttime tonight, even though it lasts till the following morning while warnings may be lifted.”
