Photo: RNZ / Conan Young
Christchurch City Council has cancelled its New Year's Eve celebrations owing to wet weather.
The council's NYE24 and Kids' Countdown events, featuring music and fireworks at North Hagley Park, were called off on Tuesday afternoon.
A post on the council's Facebook page said: "We're sorry to share this disappointing news and apologise for any inconvenience."
Christchurch has had a particularly wet December. Tuesday's forecast was for rain easing to showers.
Celebrations in other parts of the country will also be marked by wet weather and storms.
MetService has issued heavy rain watches for parts of Hawke's Bay, the Wairoa District, and Gisborne.
About 17,000 campers are in Gisborne for the Rhythm and Vines festival, which ends on New Year's Day.
Capital celebrations go ahead
The organiser of a Wellington New Year's Eve street carnival is confident locals and visitors alike will brave the weather.
Courtenay Place is closed to traffic to make way for the Courtenay Carnival, organised by a group of bar and restaurant owners seeking to help "revive" the area amid tough economic conditions.
From 3pm until the early hours of New Year's Day there will be three outdoor stages with live music and entertainment, and bars and restaurants extending their dining areas outside to the footpaths.
Wet and windy weather was forecast for Wellington throughout the afternoon and evening.
But Hospitality NZ board member Jeremy Smith - who owns a number of Courtenay Place establishments and helped organise the event - was confident it would draw a crowd.
"All the sound is protected from rain, wind looks like it's dying down and that's the bigger deterrent ... we're going ahead regardless," he said.
"Come on down, grab a bite to eat, enjoy the entertainment and just celebrate the end of '24 and look forward to a great '25."
Hotels were reasonably well booked, indicating visitors and locals alike were ready to celebrate, he said.
The idea for the carnival was born as the capital's hospitality industry struggled with the high cost of living and widespread public sector job cuts.
"The Courtenay Place revival team got together in April and said, we've gotta do something, we can't sit back and complain that life is terrible, we've got to take action," Smith said.
"We wanted to finish the year with a high, and we haven't closed Courtenay Place in a long, long time, [so] we thought, well let's get that going again."
This year was the proof of concept, Smith said.
"If it works, it'll become an annual event and we can make it bigger and better."
The place to be
Metservice says the west coast of the South Island is the place to be to ring in the New Year with warm, dry conditions forecast.
Meteorologist Ngaire Wotherspoon told RNZ it would be raining across most of the North Island on Tuesday, especially on the east coast. But rain would clear in most places by the evening, apart from Tairāwhiti Gisborne.
The forecast was far better in the South Island in places like Greymouth, Hokitika, Queenstown and Wānaka.
She said temperatures across the country would be cool over the next few days, due to a persistent southerly flow.
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