April brought extremely high rainfall to Northland, including in Kāeo, seen here in the aftermath of ex-tropical Cyclone Tam. Photo: RNZ/Peter de Graaf
Kerikeri and Whangārei have set new records for the wettest April ever recorded, with both centres soaked by about four times their average rainfall for the month.
MetService meteorologist Devlin Lynden said Kerikeri received a massive 593 millimetres of rain in the month just ended, far higher than the April average of 151 millimetres and significantly more than the previous record of 429mm set in 1999.
Further south, Whangārei recorded 402mm, more than four times the city's April average of 97mm. Whangārei's previous record, 346mm, was set in 1974.
Lynden said Auckland came within millimetres of a new record with its April total of 218mm. The city's record of 225mm, as measured at the airport, was set in 1968.
Rainfall records in Whangārei go back to 1967 and in Kerikeri to 1978.
"In that entire area north of Auckland, Northland and North Auckland, you guys have had some pretty wet conditions over the last month," Lynden said.
The cause was a series of weather systems drawing moisture-laden air from the tropics.
"We had ex-tropical Cyclone Tam earlier in the month, for example, which was pulling all this moist, warm air from the tropics directly down into Northland," he said.
"We also had some cooler temperatures moving up from the south, which resulted in really good conditions for thunderstorms and downpours. So it was a combination of those two squeezing features."
