The Gisborne region appears to have escaped unharmed from the remnants of Cyclone Hola overnight.
Storm clouds at Wainui beach near Gisborne (file photo) Photo: Steve Gibbs
Despite severe gales and heavy rain in Gisborne city about midnight, Fire and Emergency said it had no weather-related callouts.
MetService says Gisborne was the worst-hit in terms of rain, with 90mm to 100mm falling yesterday.
Winds peaked through Northland, Auckland and the Coromandel Peninsula, with gusts in excess of 100km/h early this morning.
The weather system now lies to the east of East Cape and is continuing to move away to the southeast.
Emergency services were on standby as heavy rainfall was expected to coincide with a high tide at 3am, with river levels peaking about 5am.
However, Civil Defence said the river did not reach alert levels.
Thames-Coromandel District Council Civil Defence controller Julian Snowball said the region managed to avoid the worst.
"We've had a few minor reports of surface flooding on the coastal road but nothing you wouldn't expect from a night of heavy rain on the coastline," he said.
It appeared to be game over regarding the effects of cyclone Hola, he said.
"Until the next one, as they say. It's just a fact of life, living on the coast.
"My job and the job of Civil Defence is just to repeat that preparedness message, but that's where we'll go to now."
A spokesperson said communities along the East Coast from Hicks Bay to Tolaga Bay also appeared to have got off lightly as the storm moved further out to sea than was forecast.
RNZ reporter Sally Murphy, in Coromandel, said there were no road closures or power cuts there.
She said there was just a slight breeze in Whitianga shortly before 6am, and it was not raining.
Farmers in the Gisborne region were urged last night to move stock away from rivers and some small businesses were issued with sandbags.
MetService meteorologist Hordur Thordarson last night was expecting the worst of the storm to have moved out to sea by morning.
"We've still got the ... remnants of this cyclone that's expanding south from about Coromandel down through Waikato and on to the central plateau of the North Island, and it's also affecting Gisborne, but the rain should be gradually clearing from the west."
Bill Martin, who runs the Te Araroa Holiday Park at Hicks Bay, had a generator and supplies ready last night, but said he could not see Hola being a big problem unless it rained heavily overnight.
Previous storms had left his house knee-deep in water but this time round did not appear that bad, he said.
Mr Martin has lived on the East Coast since the early 2000s and said, in his experience, there needed to be persistent rain for 15 to 20 hours before there was any serious flood risk.
At 9pm on Monday, MetService still had a heavy rain warning in place for Great Barrier Island, Coromandel Peninsula and Gisborne.
Up to 90mm of rain could accumulate north of Gisborne and up to 50mm could fall further south.
At its peak, up to 20mm of rain could fall an hour north of Gisborne, the agency said.
A heavy rain warning for Northland had been lifted.
