Power outages, downed trees, flooding and empty aisles at supermarkets are some of the early impacts being seen as Cyclone Gabrielle lashes the upper North Island.
The sea was surging at Orewa Beach on Sunday afternoon.
Photo: Supplied / Chris Newson
Strong winds and a high tide at the north Auckland beach.
Photo: Supplied / Chris Newson
One kite surfer was out in the heavy swell at the beach.
Photo: RNZ / Rhonwyn Newson
Photo: RNZ / Rhonwyn Newson
Heavy rain from the cyclone caused flooding at Riverside Drive in Northland’s Whangārei.
Photo: RNZ / Soumya Bhamidipati
Riverside Drive in Northland’s Whangārei.
Photo: RNZ / Soumya Bhamidipati
In the Far North, trees and powerlines came down, causing an outage to about 1500 properties on Friday morning.
Photo: Supplied / Top Energy NZ
Photo: Supplied / Top Energy NZ
In Auckland, crews were working to restore electricity at Karekare on the west coast, in Henderson and pockets of east Auckland and the North Shore.
There were also outages at Whitianga on the Coromandel Peninsula, Waharoa in Waikato and Inglewood in Taranaki.
Auckland Airport has braced itself for flooding and has sandbags at the ready after being severely affected during January’s deluge.
Photo: RNZ / Jonty Dine
Air New Zealand announced international arrivals and departures on Monday would be extremely limited. There are also domestic flight cancellations through to Tuesday.
Essentials were sold out at several supermarkets across Auckland as people prepared for Cyclone Gabrielle.
Photo: RNZ / Jonty Dine
The bread aisle at St Luke’s Countdown was wiped clean on Sunday morning.
Photo: RNZ / Veronica Schmidt
Authorities are reassuring people supermarkets will stay open and urged people not to panic-buy.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins visits Auckland Transport’s operation centre in Takapuna, North Shore as Cyclone Gabrielle makes landfall.
Photo: RNZ / Ashleigh McCaull
Today personnel from our New Zealand Army’s 16 Field Regiment assisted in delivering and unloading more than 50 pallets of emergency supplies to the central distribution centre in Auckland ahead of the severe weather from Cyclone Gabrielle.
Photo: Supplied / New Zealand Defence Force
Photo: RNZ / Lucy Xia
Satellite imagery of Cyclone Gabrielle on 12 February.
Photo: Twitter / NIWA
National Emergency Management Agency message: Cyclone Gabrielle will impact much of the North Island with severe gales, heavy rain and very large waves forecast from today through to Tuesday.
This is expected to be an unprecedented and dangerous weather event.
MetService has issued severe weather warnings for many parts of the North Island.
Keep up to date with MetService weather warnings and advice from your local Civil Defence Emergency Management Group.
Adhere to all advice and instructions from authorities.
Cyclone Gabrielle will also exacerbate the impacts for those communities recovering from recent floods
Avoid travelling during severe weather, and check Waka Kotahi for road closures.
- Do what you can to prepare your household for the coming days.
- Information about preparing for storms can be found at getready.govt.nz.
- Call 111 if you feel in any danger.
Stay safe. Don’t take any chances.
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