Wellington weather causes havoc, trains and planes cancelled as wild winds hit
Monday, 16 February 2026
Huge wind and rains wrecked damage across the country with many places getting more rainfall in 24 hours than they would normally receive in the whole of February.
In Wellington, huge winds overnight and into the morning tore off roofs, flattened fences, brought trees and power lines down across roads while rivers and streams rose, threatening residents.
Lyall Bay resident Stuart Mudd said he was woken up at 5am by his brick wall lining the front of the house coming down with “quite a bang”.
Bricks were strewn across the foot path and Mudd put a post on the community Facebook page for some help.
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Mudd and his partner had only bought the house in July but he had been living in Wellington for about 16 years.
In terms of wild weather, “this was the worst I remember”, he said.
“If that was an orange [warning], I’d like to know what a red is.”
Mudd didn’t expect the brick wall to come down but was grateful for neighbours coming to his assistance.
Michelle Wilhelm had spent the evening and morning checking in with neighbours.
“I saw a post and got my garden gloves on,” she said.
Many residents had lost their fencing and a handful had parts of their roof come off.
She had sandbagged her garage doors to prevent it from flying off.
“We knew it was going to be damaging,” she said, and it was comparable to the storms in 2013.
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Home owners at another house along Lyall Parade were forced to get up at 4am to secure their roof to prevent it from flying off, with the help of FENZ.
The owner, who asked not to be named, said the power line had been arcing on the roof.
They had turned off their electricity and moved all furniture and appliances from the front of their house, which had started leaking after part of their roof peeled back.
They had also been to their neighbours’ house to help board it up after their windows smashed.
“This is the first time I actually thought, this is a scary one.”
She said better communication from local authorities would be helpful for people to remember to check things like securing their roofs in the event of strong winds.
There were plenty of warnings about the contaminated ocean water, when the real damage had been caused by the wind, she said.
Between 6pm on Sunday and 8am today, Fire and Emergency New Zealand received 852 emergency 111 calls in the North Island. Most of them (804) related to storm damage, including fallen trees and powerlines, lifting roofs and property damage.
Assistant National Commander Ken Cooper said more than half of the calls came from people in the Wellington region as the storm moved south, but every part of the North Island except Northland reported storm damage or flooding.
Wellington was pounded by high winds, with Mt Kaukau and Wellington Airport measuring 193 km/h and 128 km/h, their strongest winds since June 2013 (when they reached 202 km/h and 143 km/h respectively).
The Kelburn weather station recorded its strongest winds from a southerly direction since June 2013 when a southerly wind of 141 km/h was measured.
The Baring Head Wave Buoy in Wellington Harbour recorded a significant wave height of 7.54 metres just after 11pm on Sunday. Both the Interislander and Bluebridge ferries were cancelled on Monday.
Power was cut around the region, mostly due to trees falling, and residents in several areas were asked to evacuate as streams and rivers rose.
Trains and planes were out and many roads were impassable due to flooding. By the afternoon Metlink had resumed trains using a Saturday timetable.
Other parts of the country had also been hammered by the wild weather, with states of emergency declared around the North Island, in Manawatū, Ōtorohanga, Waipā, Tararua District and Rangitīkei.
MetService had warnings in place for heavy rain and severe gales for the eastern, central and southern North Island, Marlborough, North Canterbury and Chatham Islands.
Waikato district was hammered during the weekend, with a beloved dad and keen fisherman found dead in his submerged car and a family forced to flee rising floodwaters. Severe weather was lashing the wider Manawatū, with residents near rising rivers in Ashhurst and Tararua evacuated while thousands of homes are without power.
Cape Turnagain on the Wairarapa coast recorded a 240kph gust early on Monday morning while Castlepoint had a 176kph gust.
Near Cape Palliser in southern Wairarapa, 274mm of rain fell in 24 hours with more than 200mm in nine hours.