A painting by Kapiti artist Eva Saunders, fitting for the experience of the last few days.

The Cyclone Gita remnants passed close by to Wellington and Waikanae, and although not as windy as some had expected (including the Met Service), there was still plenty of rain.

Fortunately, the rain wasn’t all at once and there were lengthy periods without any as shown in the rainfall graph.

As can be seen, the heaviest downpour in Waikanae was actually in the early hours of Thursday and that combined with ‘coastal inondation’ from powerful waves caused some damage to the Waikanae Beach sand dunes, although nothing a bulldozer can’t put right.

Total rainfall since Monday evening is 103.5 mm which is close to double the average total for February.