Canterbury's very wet November not over yet

Friday, 23 November 2018

More rain is expected to batter Christchurch and much of Canterbury into next week.

If you're fed up with the sight and sound of rain this month, spare a thought for the Christchurch residents of 1875, 1952, 1986 and 2002.

Those years had the city's wettest Novembers, as recorded in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, with 173mm, 137mm, 134mm and 125mm of rain respectively.

Christchurch Airport's accumulated rainfall for the year to date. With more rain expected over the next week, the red line will continue climbing.

Christchurch folk are not good with rain, compared with people in our big North Island cities and across the Alps on the West Coast.

While it feels like the rain this month has barely stopped, the 83mm to date at the airport is less than half the Gardens' 1875 November record.

* Christchurch tracking towards its gloomiest June ever

* Day after Christchurch breaks dry spell record - could that be rain?**

Even with more rain on the way from Saturday, that record is very unlikely to tumble. But whether the standing of the three other very wet Novembers is jeopardised depends on how much rain falls this weekend and next week.

The airport has had 770mm of rain to date this year - about 200mm more than the average to date.

In Friday's severe weather outlook, MetService says it has high confidence of heavy rain across much of Canterbury on Sunday and Monday.

Blue Skies Weather forecaster Tony Trewinnard said it was possible another 40mm to 60mm of rain would fall by the end of the month.

Canterbury Weather Updates is forecasting as much as 70mm of rain in Christchurch from Sunday afternoon to Monday night, and close to 100mm elsewhere around the region.

The wettest years on record in the Gardens were 1951, with 1011mm, 1986 with 993mm, 1946 with 968mm and 1945 with 959mm.

Trewinnard said with more rain on the way in December, Christchurch could post an annual rainfall around the 900mm mark.