Qaliwalu st crossing, Lautoka (Source: Nandani Naidu)

The Fiji Meteorological Services says the active trough of low pressure that is currently affecting the country is slowly moving northwards.

Acting Manager Forecast, Amit Singh says with the trough moving northwards, rain is expected to ease over most parts of Viti Levu, Southern Lau group, Kadavu and nearby smaller islands from later today and the rest of the group from early tomorrow.

Singh adds this trough is anticipated to lie just to the north of Fiji tomorrow.

However he says this same trough of low pressure is expected to drift southwards again from Tuesday and affect the country until Friday.

This system is expected to continue to bring rain until late next week.

“We saw a lot of rain falling over the land areas, like the Western Division, most of the centres reported more than 200 millimetres, and Nadarivatu was reporting more than 400 millimetres. That’s a lot of rainfall in 24 hours, and due to that, we saw the major rivers in the Western Division burst their banks, mainly Ba, all those rivers there. Now we see the Ba River is gradually going down, but the Nadi River remains at warning levels. This is due to the high tide currently now, but in the hours to come later today, we expect this level to gradually go down as the tide level goes down.”

A heavy rain warning remains in force for the whole of Fiji Group.

Low-lying and flood-prone locations may experience flash floods as a result of localized heavy rainfall.

The ground is saturated with continuous rain of the past couple of days.

This increases the risk of major river flooding, flash flooding and also landslides.

A Flood Warning remains in force for the flood prone areas adjacent and downstream of major rivers of Vanua Levu, and Western Viti Levu [Sigatoka through Nadi, Lautoka, Ba, Tavua, Rakiraki upto Korovou].

A Flood Alert remains in force for the flood prone areas adjacent and downstream of Wainibuka, Wainimala, Waindina, Waimanu, Rewa and Nauva Rivers.