Cyclone Tam lashes upper North island ahead of long weekend

Thursday, 17 April 2025

The Zoom Earth website shows satellite imagery of Cyclone Tam lashing northern New Zealand.

Response crews have been working since early this morning to restore services to parts of the upper North Island where Cyclone Tam has caused damage to service lines, roads and homes.

The ex-tropical cyclone hit Northland the hardest, with wind gusts of up to 150km/hr recorded and rain up to 119.5mm.

Maritime NZ says the forecast winds were the strongest since 2017.

A storm surge powering in at the entrance of the Gulf this morning on high tide.

A wave buoy north of the Bay of Islands also reportedly recorded 12m swells.

About 24,000 homes were without power this morning in the upper north with trees reportedly falling on power lines.

A low-pressure system bringing heavy rainfall, strong winds and massive swells to much of the country is expected to continue into the Easter weekend.

Police earlier said in a statement that it had been notified of infrastructure damage affecting mobile phone coverage in Northland, but that emergencies services could still be contacted via landlines.

Around 65 reported outages to cell service showing between Auckland and Northland on One New Zealand’s outage map showing at the time of publish.

Around 24,000 homes were without power after a night of wild weather in the North Island.

Northland's Kaeo River also reached its SH10 flooding level this morning.

Meanwhile, Auckland Emergency Management says there have been nearly 100 storm related call outs across the region, split evenly between tree damage and stormwater blockages.

Stuff reported that a couple in Mairangi Bay in Auckland’s northern Hibiscus Coast had a tree fall into their home and knock their front deck off.

The Auckland Harbour Bridge had been reduced to two lanes in each direction this morning due to heavy wind, but they have since reopened, for now.

Ferries were cancelled this morning while multiple domestic flights in and out of Auckland Airport were delayed or cancelled.

MetService has issued orange wind and rain warnings for Northland, Coromandel Peninsula, Auckland and Great Barrier Island. These warnings were extended to Tongariro National Park, eastern Bay of Plenty and the coverage in Gisborne around 11am on Thursday.

State Highway 29 east of Te Poi in Waikato is expected to remain closed until after 3pm after a tree fell on a bridge.

MetService warns of 120kph gusts, flooding, thunderstorms and massive swells as Cyclone Tam targets northern New Zealand. Stormy conditions may spread to the South Island.

The Department of Conservation has said the Kauaeranga Valley Rd in Coromandel is also closed beyond the visitor centre.

Conditions won’t be improving for a few days yet, forecasters say.

“As we look to weather for the rest of the Easter weekend, unfortunately I don’t have amazing news for [upper] North Islanders,” says Niwa forecaster Nava Fedaeff.

“The remnants of cyclone Tam continue to swirl away to the west, and they are bringing down moisture from the north so expect more rain across the North Island and the top of the South Island on Friday and into Saturday and Sunday.”

However, there are bright spots.

On Saturday, it’s expected to reach 27C and be mainly fine in Masteron, Wanganui and Palmerston North.

MetService has called Invercargill “the place to be”, while Gore would also only see light showers on Sunday and Monday and could reach 17C.

“[But] nowhere across the country is really completely escaping a chance of rain over the course of Easter weekend, unfortunately,” said MetService meteorologist Luis Fernandes.

“ We just end up in this quite messy situation where rain is kind of expected for most areas,” said Fernandes.