Tornados, torrential rain, hail, thunderstorms smash North Taranaki

Monday, 12 August 2019

Richard Grange was 'freaking out' when he saw a trampoline smash into the car ahead of him.

Wild weather has ripped through New Plymouth, with a tornado crossing State Highway 3 just north of the city and another downing trees in South Taranaki.

Did you see the tornado? Email newstips@stuff.co.nz

Police responded to reports of a trampoline hitting a car on Devon Rd (SH3) on Monday morning.

Employment consultant Rachael Hughes was heading back to work when the twister struck. 'I had just changed lanes and I saw debris and then the tramp came from nowhere,' she said.

A car hit by a trampoline hurled into the air by a twister in Taranaki on Monday morning.

* Two buildings, trees, trampoline damaged by Taranaki tornado**

Richard Grange helped a woman after a trampoline smashed into her car.

Hughes said you could see a distinct funnel of the tornado, like you do in the movies. 'I have never seen anything like it before. It was terrifying. You just don't even have time to think.'

Hughes said the tramp smashed straight into the windscreen and front of the car.

Richard Grange was following Hughes, heading south into New Plymouth along SH3, and watched the event unfold.

Rachael Hughes was treated for minor injuries after the trampoline hit her car.

'I saw a trampoline lift up over the trees just behind us and swirl around and then come straight down on this lady's car right in front of us.'

Grange said he wasn't sure what to do or if the twister would hit his vehicle.

'I wasn't sure if I should pull over or if it would travel towards us.'

After the swirling wind had passed he immediately went to the aid of the woman whose car was hit.

North Taranaki residents woke to a dramatic Monday, with a tornado, hail and high winds wreaking havoc across the region.

'We decided straight away to go check on this lady and make sure she was OK.

Grange said the got the woman, who was not injured, out of her seriously damaged car and into his to keep her warm until emergency services arrived.

Hughes said if the trampoline had hit at a different angle things could have been far worse.

A St John spokeswoman said they were called to the incident at 9.24am. Hughes was treated for minor injuries but was not transported to hospital.

A tornado forming off the coast of Tapuae on Monday morning.

A fire communications spokesperson said a building on Paraite Rd was hit by a tornado and the caller said his wife had broken her collarbone. FENZ assisted with the damage, he said.

A St John ambulance spokeswoman said paramedics were also called to a job on Paraite Rd at 9.31am by Fire and Emergency New Zealand, where they treated someone with moderate injuries and transported them to Taranaki Base Hospital.

Iron ended up caught in a tree on a Manutahi Rd property, near Lepperton.

A neighbour, who wanted to be known only as Pip, said a woman had been taken to hospital with a suspected broken collarbone.

'I just heard like a freight train coming up through here,' he said.

He thought he'd come down and give the neighbours a hand to clean up, he said.

'I thought I'd better get up there to make sure everyone is still alive.'

The tornado and thunderstorm cut power to about 800 homes.

Nearby resident Eddie Smith said he had seen a couple of 'reasonably sized' trees down on Paraite Rd and wind-breaking mesh wrapped around power poles and powerlines.

A person also reported to police being hit by a tornado on Corbett Rd, Bell Block, and seeing the side of a shed being blown off, but there were no injuries reported, the spokesperson said.

Police had also been notified of houses with roofs off in Lepperton, she said.

Trees were felled by the tornado as it passed through Paraite Rd.

Linda Jury, who lost part of the roof of her Cooke Farm Gr home in Waiwhakaiho, was sitting inside watching television with her husband when the freak weather event struck.

'There was hail and then the wind came up, ' she said. 'We could see the wind swirling then our barbecue table was picked up and thrown against our window.

A resident in Waiwhakaiho returns some outdoor furniture that had been picked up by the tornado.

'If anyone would have been in the path of the roof, they would have been killed.'

The section of roof torn off the Jury home ended up being dumped 70m away on a neighbour's driveway.

Roofing iron was ripped from this house.

A neighbour of the Jurys, who only wanted to provide her first name, Judith, said she was inside cleaning her oven when the tornado swept through.

'It was a scary thing, but you don't even have enough time to be scared as it is all over so quickly.'

Another resident, Jonno Webster, said his wife Delina called him while he was at work telling him to come home. 'She said she just saw the roof coming down the street.'

Heather Ternouth said the twister uprooted a gum tree, she believed was more than 100 years old, at her Corbett Rd property.

A waterspout is seen off the coast of New Plymouth during wild weekend weather.

'We got a bit of a hail storm and then the wind kicked up hugely.'

'It was pretty frightening because we didn't really know what was happening.'

She said the howling wind lasted for a couple of minutes and had buckled a shed door, ripped off roofing iron and toppled smaller trees as well as knocking over the gum tree

Just after 9am on Monday, Pulse Oil Corp president Drew Cadenhead looked out his office window in Tapuae, near Oakura, to see the Tornado heading straight for New Plymouth.

'I was just sitting at my desk and the window looks straight out onto the ocean,' he said. 'I looked up and there it was, heading for New Plymouth.

Houses were damaged as the tornado ripped through North Taranaki.

'I could see it was clearly heading past Paritutu and heading straight for the city.'

Cadenhead said he could see the tornado for a couple of minutes before it went behind Paritutu Rock.

A resident looks over their damaged fence.

'It was a nasty looking storm and definitely looked like it had some power to it.'

Huirangi resident Taelym Kenny said it had started hailing really hard and 'then it kind of just formed out of nowhere'.

A reporter at the scene said the weather had calmed after the tornado blew through. There was debris strewn around the affected area and some powerlines were also down.

Sergeant Shane Hurliman said police remained on high alert regarding any further weather-related call-outs. 'Our main concern at the moment is there could be another weather bomb on the way.'

This gum tree was uprooted at a Corbett Rd property.

About 3pm, power outages remained in Lepperton and Waiwhakaiho, but more than 800 properties were without power earlier in the day.

South Taranaki's Richard Walker said he had looked towards the back of the farm, on Omuturangi Rd, near the coast in Otakeho, and saw a tornado - 'holy s… there's a bloody tornado'.

'The cows were back that way in line with the trees. I ended up going back down there and having a look.'

Not long after a tornado hit New Plymouth, another struck in South Taranaki.

It had been very windy and pouring rain, but other than broken trees, there didn't appear to be much damage and the cows were fine, he said.

Hail batters vehicles on Henwood Rd, New Plymouth.

Taranaki Civil Defence Emergency Management group controller Craig Campbell-Smart said the wild weather was the result of the system coming across the west of the North Island up from the south.

'The main issue is the difference in the pressure of the systems as they hit landfall,' he said. 'We're going to see some more rough stuff ahead of us today.'

He recommended restricting inter-region travel, being very safe on the roads and 'be prepared to wait it out'.

Campbell-Smart said hopefully people had their emergency kits and family plans in place so they would be ready if their property was affected.

Metservice meteorologist Peter Little said they estimated Monday's New Plymouth tornado was an EF0 tornado - the lowest category on the Enhanced Fujita scale - with wind gusts up to 140kmh.

Because of New Plymouth's location right on the coast, it was susceptible to the north or northwest winds bringing warm buoyant air.

He said he did not have figures on Taranaki's tornado statistics in front of him but the West Coast of the South Island probably got more tornadoes, but they were not all seen.

Little added that in a strong updraft of wind, the hail can grow bigger because it stays in the cloud longer, and the hail also collided with other hail to produce strange shapes.

A severe thunderstorm watch was also updated at 1.47pm, for 10 hours from 2pm Monday to midnight.

The Metservice report said an unstable northwest flow with an embedded trough is affecting the North Island on Monday, bringing squally thunderstorms to western areas.

'There is a chance some of these thunderstorms may become severe bringing damaging winds gusts of 110kmh or stronger (mainly near the coast), with a few small tornadoes also possible.'

The risk covers Northland to Taranaki, including western Coromandel Peninsula.

Wind gusts of that strength can cause some structural damage, including trees and power lines, and may make driving hazardous. If any tornados occur, they will only affect very localised areas.

This watch will be updated by 10pm on Monday.

There is a chance some of the thunderstorms may become severe, bringing damaging winds gusts of 110kmh or stronger, with a few small tornadoes also possible.

The updated watch followed a severe thunderstorm warning issued by MetService at 9.22am, after its radar detected the thunderstorms near New Plymouth and Bell Block at 9.07am.

At the time, MetService said the storms were moving east-south-east and were expected to hit Tarata, Whangamōmona and Pohokura.

The thunderstorms were expected to be accompanied by torrential rain, large hail, damaging winds and possibly tornados, MetService said.

Large hail was reported in Waiwhakaiho and Fitzroy about the same time the thunderstorms and tornado hit.

It is exactly a month since the last tornado hit New Plymouth. That one took a similar path, damaging two buildings in the Waiwhakaiho industrial area.

It is also almost a year since the last major tornado in the region, which struck New Plymouth's Belt Rd on August 20, 2018, damaging a number of homes. The same day another tornado hit Ohope.

Taranaki's wild weather comes after Auckland was battered by a powerful storm on Sunday night.

MetService issued severe thunderstorm warnings for Northland, Auckland, Great Barrier Island, Coromandel Peninsula, Waikato and Bay of Plenty on Sunday night.

In Auckland, a house was struck by lightning, fences were down and roofs were ripped off across the city. Niwa said that over 700 lightning strikes were recorded in an hour.