Time to get strapped in for more crazy weather
There’s a severe category 3 cyclone approaching NZ from Sunday and we are working hard to make sure your internet service isn’t affected. Here’s what you need to know:
- The Lightwire team is proactively visiting sites this week to make sure that all of our backup power services are ready to be used if required.
- We have on-call engineers available 24/7 to remotely access our network and fault-find issues.
- Field techs will be ready to deploy if faults occur but only if it's safe to do so. The weather may well make it impossible for our team to safely get out and about, so please be patient with us.
All our sites have battery backup so any localised mains power failure will not affect us. However, if a Lightwire tower does go down, you will receive a notification.
If you do have any issues, please call us on 0800 12 13 14 and our awesome Hamilton based team will do their best to get you up and running again.
Stay safe out there! Check on your neighbours, and tie-down outdoor furniture, trampolines, or any other loose items outside.
Here's what we know so far about the cyclone
Winds: Generally speaking, winds in the most extreme cases will be 120 – 150kmp/h, maybe higher – peaking later Monday and early Tuesday from the east, before swinging around from the west.
Rain: 200mm to 300mm, with some ranges in the North Island potentially in the 300mm+ range. Check your WeatherWatch.co.nz or RuralWeather.co.nz forecast for your current general local rainfall estimates.
MetService will likely issue warnings in the coming day or two, but in the meantime, here’s a timeline we have:
Sunday
Easterlies ramp up with gales developing from Auckland northwards. Some rain developing.
Monday
The centre of the cyclone moves into northern NZ late in the day and overnight. Peak damaging winds and heaviest rain are expected across Monday and into Tuesday.
Tuesday
The cyclone moves down the North Island
Wednesday
Conditions slowly easing across NZ but gales and some rain still lingering
