3 days ago
Weather: Coastal Taranaki residents report being hit by tornado-like squall
Video of the tornado-like squall were posted to social media.
Photo:
Facebook/Amy Barrett
A coastal Taranaki woman has described a tornado-like squall hitting near Cape Egmont.
Lynley Johnson, who lives on Anglers Ave in Warea, said she saw a mass of cloud gathering out at sea, north off the coast at about 10am.
"I noticed the cloud formation and my husband and I looked at it and went wow, that really looks like a tornado, so we watched it and it was rapidly moving, swirling and then it hit the land and we thought it sort of broke up, and about a half hour later we got a really big hail storm come through with fairly sizeable hail stones.
"It's been coming through off and on all morning."
She said she shot video of the tornado and her neighbours had been reporting damage.
"There's been a bit of damage down Pungarehu way - Pungarehu Road I think it came in on - with powerlines down.
"I'm not sure if there's damage to homes or anything, but we've had some really squally winds that have really driven us to stay in the middle of the house. At the moment it is torrential out here."
Margaret Bolstad also posted about a tornado on the Taranaki Extreme Weather Facebook page.
"Tornado Lower Pungarehu Road, has taken out power, lines down, shook house. I thought windows were going to implode, freaky and very loud."
She told RNZ that here property was right near the beach.
"The Tornado came through at 9.53am and was very, very loud. I thought it was a loud crack of thunder, but then the house was shaking and the windows were moving in and out. I thought they were going to implode.
"The fence around the section was swaying backwards and forwards. There was a loud bang then the power went out. I then switched things off and rang Powerco as power lines had broken and fuses had popped."
Powerco's outages page showed one customer in the area was affected while Fire and Emergency said that they have had no call outs or reports about the weather.
MetService says the thunderstorms could produce a few small short-lived tornadoes that are expected be very localised.
Photo:
MetService/Supplied
MetService currently has a severe thunder watch in place for Taranaki from midday to 6pm.
It said the thunderstorms could produce a few small short-lived tornadoes that were expected be very localised, but may cause damage to structures and vegetation.
Brief heavy rain, hail and squally winds were also in the mix.
MetService advised that should severe weather approach or if people felt threatened, they should take shelter immediately.
Powerco said no lines were down, but one customer had a fuse problem most likely caused by lightning.
Fire and Emergency said that they have had no call outs or reports about the weather.
Powerco's outages page showed one customer experiencing and unplanned outage in the area.
The Taranaki Extreme Weather Facebook page was filled with posts and comments about the weather on the coast.
Another woman had also shot video for the tornado coming ashore at about 10am.
"Thats not too small either, I hope everyone was safe and not too much damage," commented one woman.
Another commentator saw a silver lining.
"Mother nature is so scary, but beautiful at the same time. I hope everyone is okay and we don't get anymore."
It brought back bad memories for another.
"Scary stuff, just over two years since one took our roof, all our wooden fences and 30 plus mature trees. Only recently - feel like 80 percent of damage/delayed projects are done."
Another posted video of a second twister at Pungarehu at 11.30am while golf-ball sized hailstorms raining down at Warea an hour earlier featured in another video.
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