boltonblue

54° this morning, 31° now had a little spit of snow as the cold front came through.

zeroptzero

I'm posting this in two spots, I hope Matt in NZ is doing okay, I just seen the report of the cyclone that hit his region , it looked pretty bad. They were also talking about lots of cattle that likely drowned , and I know Matt has cattle and farm animals. Hoping all is safe , power may still be disrupted there too.

Morris

Joey just look back three pages or so on this same thread. He provides an update.

zeroptzero

Oh thanks, I thought the cyclone just hit as I just seen it on the news , so I didn't realize it was already covered, thanks for the update and reference.

Hertz Donut

Hey Joey, thanks for the concern. We came out of it alright but for the past few days my wife and I have been volunteering, I started with a wheelbarrow and shovel, clearing mud out of properties, then once I started running out of steam we moved on to taking food packages out to rural properties, where there's a real threat to the regional economy. We're the largest apple-growing region in NZ, and the flooding came right through the heart of the orchard area. A large part of it sits between two rivers, both of which burst their stop banks, and it was nailed from both ends at once. Water went from puddles to hip-height in 5 minutes. The official death toll stands at 11 but that's only being updated once bodies have been identified and next of kin advised. The Army is collecting bodies from the shorelines, and Napier has run out of body bags.

I was in the worst-hit part south of Napier today, there's mud on the roofs of houses, and an orchard apple bin was stuck against the chimney of one of them. There's hundreds of helpers in the area, trying to clear the silt, but there's nowhere to put it all. It's about 7 feet thick in some places, and one orchardist estimated he had 500,000 tons of silt spread over 112 acres.

The scary thing is, it's even worse north of Napier. This is all mud and silt, and it's everywhere.

robb

Jesus that is awful I have never seen mud and silt like that.

zeroptzero

^ Matt good to hear, I could not imagine that much water, let along mud and silt. I know when we get 40+ mm of rain here it is a tough day, that must be very difficult there. I just seen the news this weekend and they were talking about cows drowning , so I immediately thought of you. Seems like people drowning was a big danger too. Being in Canada I can't relate to a hurricane or cyclone, but it is best I never have to experience one. I hope all of your region comes out of this and gets back to normal soon. Best regards, and that is great that you guys are volunteering , that just seems right.

Hertz Donut

I'd like to say how much rain we had but all the weather stations were overwhelmed and none of them seem to have recorded a total for 24 or 48 hours. People have reported being stuck of rooftops with no choice but to listen to stock drowning around them. It really has been a mixed bag of triumph and tragedy. A clip was posted of someone calling to their cows from a riverbank after the stock were washed in, and they swam over a quarter mile to shore, safely. Sadly one of the people I met while clearing mud told me they saw a farmer standing on a river stop bank, calling his herd to swim to him but not realizing that the stop bank had burst, and both he and his stock were heading for the breach. He didn't know how that ended but I doubt it was good.

More rain is forecast for Thursday, hopefully it's minor and doesn't liquify the cleared silt.

robb

Be careful Matt it is great that you are helping but take care out there.

boltonblue

Matt that actually looks like a lahar flow. a concrete-like slurry mix of old volcanic ash and water.