The Rangitata River 2019 floods; the braided river reclaims its stolen braids. The B&W image is late 1960. Images: Canterbury Maps Historical Aerial Imagery CanterburyMaps & partners licensed for reuse CC BY 4.0
Fig. 1: From the ground, it would have seemed like chaos; floods of water rampaging over the plains, damaging anything in its path. But from above, a different picture was emerging. Environment Canterbury (ECan) staff were photographing the floods from the air, later stitching together the images to create a mosaic of the event. It showed the floodwaters were following a predetermined pattern. The flood was itself a river, with twists and braids and tributaries, much like the Rangitata itself. A zombie river, long ago buried beneath asphalt and housing and irrigators, had been revived. – The Rewilding Project / Stuff (2021)
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The chances of getting a warm year are increasing all the time. The chances of getting a cold year are decreasing all the time. When you look at shorter time frames, from day to months, it’s really about the chances of getting a very hot event, extreme high temperatures, or heavy rainfall, are what’s really impacting both ecosystems and human activities. It’s how extreme are changing that’s really important…As temperatures rise, the number of rain days decrease. So moderate rain decreases while extreme rain increases…more and more extreme rainfall events and floods, with concurrent impacts, including erosion and landslips. – Prof. James Renwick 2022
When Cyclone Gabrielle struck Hawkes Bay in January 2023 it provided some insight into the limitation of climate models. The 2020 NIWA report, Climate change projections and impacts for Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay projected that under the RCP8.5 (worst-case) scenario the average maximum annual 5-day rainfall by the year 2081 would be 151.3 (+14.8)mm at Glengarry.
During the cyclone, the Glengarry site recorded 546mm of rainfall with almost 400mm falling in 12 hours at a maximum intensity of 56mm/hour.
Over New Zealand, an average two to three fold rise in frequencies of extremes occurs irrespective of seasons due to anthropogenic influence, with a mean temperature increase close to 1°C. – Thomas et al, October 2022
The ‘close to 1°C’ threshold across Aotearoa has now been exceeded:
NIWA’s long-running ‘seven-station’ series shows NZ’s average annual temperature has increased by about 1°C over the past 100 years. – Annual Climate Summary 2025, Earth Sciences New Zealand
This helps explain why extremes are increasing in magnitude and number. The average global temperatures 2023-2025 exceeded 1.5°C. Moreover:
Extreme weather events are rising at a pace which exceeds expectations based on thermodynamic arguments only, changing the way we perceive our climate system and climate change issues…. The additional evaporation and rainfall tends to end up in heavy rain rather than alleviating drought: Half of it comes down in the wettest 6 d(ays) each year. Even once global warming is stopped, we will see unprecedented extremes for a long time to come. Just think of a former once-in-5000-year event which at 1.5°C warming may have become a once-in-50 year event. – Di Capua and Rahmstorf 2023
The takeaway message is clear. Existing climate models and weather forecasts are underestimating the frequency and magnitude of extreme (acute) events. This should be considered when looking at the flood hazard mapping tool below, as the statistical probability of any AEP1% event may no longer be valid. In some locations, the probability of recurrence may increase to decadal (AEP10%) or even annual (AEP100%). That is, they occur every year.
Stationarity is a term used by river engineers, hydrologists, economists and insurance companies to work out the statistical likelihood of flooding based on how often it happened in the past, hence term such as 1-in-100-year-flood.