Areas in the Waitaki district experienced 75mm to 128mm of rain, mostly on Friday night and Saturday, but it escaped relatively unscathed.
Waitaki's emergency services manager Eric Spittal partially activated the civil defence headquarters on Saturday to keep a watching brief on the rain, but he described its effects as "the same old good nuisance value".
The worst affected area was State Highway 1 from the northern boundary of Oamaru to the Waitaki River.
Surface flooding made driving treacherous, and SH1 was closed between Pukeuri and Seven Mile Rd at 2am yesterday.
It remained closed for most of the day.
Traffic was diverted along Seven Mile Rd and SH83, but some motorists drove around the barriers.
A campervan became stranded in floodwater on SH1 at the Hilderthorpe culvert on Saturday night.
Its occupant and his dog spent the night at the North Otago Hotel, near Pukeuri, and his vehicle was freed by a farmer with a four-wheel-drive about 10am yesterday.
Shortly afterwards, two occupants of a Toyota Corona coming from the Oamaru Airport became stranded when their car stalled in the same area.
Yesterday, vehicles were still attempting to drive along the closed portion of SH1.
Sgt Muldrew said some motorists ignored the hazardous road conditions.
One driver, clocked speeding at 123kmh on SH83, told Sgt Muldrew he had become lost during the detour around SH1 and was trying to make up time.
Surface flooding affected many roads in the district and culverts. Low-lying farmland east of the Kakanui River bridge on SH1 was flooded, although not as badly as during previous heavy rain.
Mr Spittal said there was initially a lot of concern about the heavy rain on Saturday and the civil defence headquarters was partially activated to co-ordinate with police and roading contractors.
The Kakanui hit a peak flow of about 50cumecs on Saturday, but was falling rapidly yesterday.
Civil defence staff monitored the situation from 6am to 4pm on Saturday.
Yesterday, the rain eased to a mixture of light drizzle and mist.
From Friday until noon yesterday, Oamaru Airport had almost 100mm of rain, Oamaru about 80mm, Clifton Falls in the Kakanui Valley 108mm, Stoneburn near Palmerston 91mm, Dansey Pass 90mm, the Omarama basin 90mm and Mt Cook 119mm.
Up to 150mm fell in the South Canterbury foothills, resulting in moderate floods in rivers and streams.
There was surface flooding on SH1 in at least 10 places between Timaru and Glenavy and on SH82 between Waimate and Kurow.
The Maerewhenua River peaked at 111cumecs, the Ahuriri at 60cumecs, Kakanui at 500cumecs and further north the Waihao River south of Waimate at 231cumecs.
