Waikato Regional Council says the region’s catchments are extremely vulnerable ahead of the winter season. Regional Resilience Team Leader Rick Liefting says the game has changed with the ground in our area being so saturated that their usual prediction tools can’t do the job.
There was more rain than normal in the second half of last year and then two cyclones and the Auckland Anniversary Weekend event were dumped on top of that in the first half of this year. Some parts of the region still have a water surplus according to NIWA, who also describe the soil moisture across the region as being at “field capacity”.
This means smaller rainfall events than normal will cause flooding – a situation likely to be made worse with forecasts of above average rainfall through July.
As part of their preparation for a wet winter the council is encouraging the community to make use of their online service Flood Room Live . Responding to questioning about whether this was the new normal, Mr Liefting said: “The answer is we’re not sure” . But added that soil moisture was so dry this time last year, no one thought we’d be in this position this year. Climate change is starting to show with “extremes becoming more intense and frequent.” Councils Integrated Catchment Management Director Greg Ryan said “We could be in for an exceptional winter, so now is the time to plan ahead and be prepared.” In local sport the Raglan Roosters had a good victory on Saturday in Hamilton beating Ruakura FC 4-1 with striker Fraser celebrating his return to the side by scoring a hatrick and taking the match ball home.
The Whaingaroa Whai Rugby league team had a tough day losing 44 – 18 to Hauraki Tigers although they did get to play in front of a home crowd for only the second time during the league season.
And Billy Stairmand finally bowed out of the ISA world surfing games in El salvador in 16th place, being the best placed of the kiwi surfers and helping lift the New Zealand team to 13th on the leaderboard – a significant improvement on last year’s event where they finished 22nd. https://raglanradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Flooding-paeroa.png