Yesterday at 7.15am, the river peaked at 1544cumecs, at Kurow - more than four times its average daily flow - before dropping back to 1272cumecs at 4pm.
Meridian Energy Ltd is continuing to spill water from its Waitaki generation system as it copes with high flows still coming into its storage lakes after five days of heavy rain in the upper catchment.
It expects high flows to continue for "days if not a week", the second time this month and the third time this year the river has been in flood after heavy rain in the upper catchment.
Yesterday, Environment Canterbury's flood controller Philip Lees said that while the heavy rain may have moved on, the river would continue to flow at high levels.
There had been no reports of major damage so far, but that could change quickly as high flows continued.
The only threat had been in the Waitaki Bridge camp on the south side of the river next to State Highway 1, where ponds had formed close to three houses.
"The river still has a very high flow, which is predicted to continue for long periods so there is an awful lot happening out on the river with shingle moving and islands being eroded," he said.
"You could be OK today, but at high flows tomorrow you may not be OK."
The river could still break out across low-lying land or into old channels through farmland.
"We are saying to people to keep a close eye on things," he said.
However, while the Waitaki River remains high, other rivers have fallen rapidly.
The Omarama Stream, which peaked at 55cumecs - a 40-year high - at Wardells early on Sunday, had dropped to 9.42cumecs yesterday afternoon, while the Ahuriri River, which peaked at 351cumecs at the South Diadem, had fallen to about 80cumecs.
The New Zealand Transport Agency closed the twin bridges on SH82 at Kurow on Sunday night when the Waitaki River was predicted to be above the 1500cumecs trigger to shut the bridges between 6pm and 7am.
They remained open on Monday night and again last night, with Meridian holding the flow below the trigger level.
The bridges have been inspected twice daily and up until late yesterday had not suffered any major damage.
Further up the Waitaki River, traffic using one lane was able to pass erosion of the eastern approach to the Otamatapaio River bridge, at Lake Benmore on SH83, and the Omarama Stream bridge on SH8, which washed out on Monday and was closed for almost five hours, is still reduced to a single lane.
Meridian spokeswoman Claire Shaw yesterday said there had been no change to the way Meridian was managing inflows, which were still high.
"It takes a long time for water to work its way through the system," she said.
The Tekapo and Pukaki storage lakes were still above their maximum operating levels yesterday.
• Snow on mountain road passes caused problems for motorists, with several vehicles becoming stuck on the Lindis Pass yesterday before police closed State Highway 8 about 4pm.
Chains were needed for travelling over Crown Range Rd. The levels of Wanaka, Hawea, and Wakatipu lakes had all risen to almost the first flood-level alerts.
The high lake levels come after a four-day-long period of wild weather and rainfall, which the Otago Regional Council has described as the second worst stormwater event since the 1999 floods.
There was also a dusting of snow in Arrowtown yesterday.
