While rainfall has been below average across the South Island, unusually wet patterns across the north have scuppered post-Christmas holidays
They have not been the hoped-for, hazy days of New Zealand summer. Auckland’s beaches were slapped with no-swim warnings as the overwhelmed stormwater system pumped sewage into the harbours. Hopeful glances at weather apps were met with uniform lines of grey storm clouds. On the roads to some popular northern holiday spots, sinkholes opened up after the rain, sending the promise of sunshiney beach days circling the drain alongside the silt and stormwater.
“Seasonal affective disorder gonna have to be renamed living in New Zealand affective disorder,” one person tweeted, as clouds and thunderstorms rolled over the North Island.
