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A king tide flooded Dunedin harbourside streets with a river of salt water this afternoon.
Marne St and a part of Somerville St, Andersons Bay, were closed at around 3.30pm after the tide spilled over from Otago Harbour.
Two Marne St residents both said that it was the highest they had ever seen the tide reach.
"It looks like it’s going into people’s garages across the road . . . its all over the footpath,” one said.
Niwa coasts and estuaries chief scientist Dr Scott Stephens said there were several king tides occurring around New Zealand at the moment.
He said these were occurring because of the gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon aligning with the regular spring tidal cycle, and the Moon is currently closer to the Earth than usual.
"These two effects go in and out of phase and right now they are in phase Perigean Spring (King) tide.”
Adding to the exceptional high tide was a raised storm surge which was adding more than 20cms of water to the tide along Otago’s coast.
Sea level rise has also been accelerating in recent years.
He said it was very fortunate that the extreme rainfall and flooding occurred last week and not this week.
"The forecast high tides then were about 0.7 m above mean sea level.
"This week, the forecast tide is 1.1 m and adding another 0.25 m of storm surge, the sea level is about 60–70 cm higher this week,”
The two streets were closed at the peak of the tide until the waters had receded.
Metservice predicted the 3.30pm high tide in the Otago Harbour to be 2.3m, however Port Otago recorded a high-tide of 2.65m at 3.20pm.