A state of emergency was declared for the region on Monday afternoon local time, while forecaster MetService upgraded its heavy rain warning to red, the highest level, which indicates a threat to life from dangerous river conditions, significant flooding and slips. One man is missing from his flood-hit Wellington house, police said.

Wellington Mayor Andrew Little said 77mm (3 inches) of rain fell in just one hour early Monday morning. “That’s nearly three times the heaviest rainfall Wellington has had, which was about two years ago,” Little told Radio New Zealand. “This was an extremely heavy downfall.”

While rain had been forecast, Little said there was no warning it would be this severe.

The deluge follows a weekend of wild weather in the capital, which caused surface flooding and evacuations in suburbs around the central city and took many people by surprise. However, the country had been on high alert the previous weekend when Cyclone Vainau swept over the North Island but caused little damage.

“Despite best efforts, there isn’t always time to get official warnings out and flooding can be very localized making it hard to predict where exactly it’ll happen,” Lauren Vinnell, senior lecturer of emergency management at Massey University, said in a statement.

The heavy rain warning is in place until Tuesday evening.