Newsable: Future weather events could be worse than Cyclone Gabrielle

Wednesday, 7 February 2024

Newsable is Stuff’s daily news podcast, wrapping up what’s worth talking about in a short package every weekday morning. Make sure to like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts.

Click the play button above to listen to the full interview or click here.

Cyclone Gabrielle caused 11 deaths and widespread damage in areas including Hawke's Bay and Gisborne.

Nearly a year on, Niwa climate scientist, Sam Dean, told Newsable weather events worse than Gabrielle, impacting wider areas of the country all at once, could occur in the future.

In a briefing to the new Emergency Management Minister, Mark Mitchell, the National Emergency Management Agency warned that climate change weather events would increase, with storms possibly more severe than Cyclone Gabrielle.

Dean told Newsable: “Could we get a bigger storm than Cyclone Gabrielle? I think we could. Could we get a storm that covered a broader area of the country at once, that like affected multiple regions simultaneously in a similar way to what we saw in Cyclone Gabrielle? Then, yes, that’s definitely possible.

“There’s always that chance of a more severe weather event affecting a much larger area, which would be more difficult and complex to deal with.”

Dean said climate change meant extreme weather events now happened more often than in the past.

He said climate change “so far has doubled the risk of these things. So, we talk about a one in 100 year event, a lot of them have come down to sort of a one in 50 year event.”

Dean told Newsable why he thought New Zealand was not well prepared for flooding events, and explained what could be done better.