Another storm

[vilakins]

Last night Auckland was lashed by the worst gales in 40 years, up to 145kph - and I managed to sleep through most of it (with the help of earplugs, admittedly). I'm glad I did as I'd have been lying there rigid with nervousness about living on the top of a hill.

Trees came down, houses were damaged, they even closed the harbour bridge for a time because a truck and trailer were blown over and the bridge was swaying too much, and 90,000 houses (according to the latest report) in the area lost power. I'm glad to say we were fine; I've woken up before a tree in the driveway which had to be cleared before I could get the car out.

Photos here.

Today however was amazingly sunny and calm, though I had to negotiate fallen branches and wheelie-bins as I walked to work. Then in the afternoon the power went off for the whole suburb with no explanation - it can't have been weather - and when my laptop battery gave up, I was released early. Bonus!

I might even have done some writing.

Comments

[kalypso]

I'm glad nothing too alarming happened where you are and you got time off work!

Was the storm just one of those things, or is it the sort of event that's more frequent with climate change?

[vilakins]

We've had high winds like that in the past - trees have blown over every year to some extent. I think it's just the extreme end of weather variations like the faint dusting of snow we got a few years ago.

[pebblerocker]

I love that photo of the mannequin's lost leg in Ponsonby!

We got more rain than wind in the Waikato. Quite an exciting time. As a matter of fact, perhaps I should post about it.

Lovely that you had a day off to get some writing done! I had been doing plenty of writing the day before the storm and was on a roll to continue the story, but that fell through when I had to spend my time digging ditches instead.

[vilakins]

It was only an hour off, but still lovely and very novel to get home in daylight. :-) I heard some places further south got a month's rain in a couple of days.

Digging ditches? Storm-related, or something else altogether?

[pebblerocker]

Definitely storm-related, trying to redirect runoff away from the house... see post for more details.

I think the last two days have given us more rainfall than in the last six months.

[mab_browne]

Good news that you weren't affected by the storms except peripherally.

[vilakins]

Thanks. I think our weaker trees were blown down over the last few years.