Eleven homes were damaged in the suspected tornado at Waitara, Fire and Emergency say.

Two of the homes were significantly damaged, but no one was hurt when the weather event occurred just after midnight, Fire and Emergency Central Communications’ shift manager Belinda Beets said.

“Roofs have been lifted on most of the [damaged] houses, but there were no injuries, which is great.“

At one home, a sunroom was “blown out”, and at other properties, fences were blown down and solar panels damaged, Beets said.

Homes affected included those in Tuiti, Bayly and Aratapu streets, with fences down in Mace St. Some damaged homes are Kainga Ora houses.

Eighteen firefighters came to help residents from the Waitara Volunteer Fire Brigade and the New Plymouth Fire Brigade, as well as two support staff.

Thunderstorms are forecast to hit from Auckland through to the Bay of Plenty, Taranaki and then the upper South Island in Nelson and Buller today.

Down south, there are several weather alerts in place, with heavy rain warnings for Dunedin and Clutha, a heavy rain watch Southland around Mossburn, plus heavy snow warnings for the Crown Range and Milford Rd (SH94), and a heavy snow watch for Central Otago, Southland north of Lumsden, also inland Dunedin and Clutha.

Meanwhile, the Tasman district which got a drenching yesterday is also under a heavy rain watch with MetService forecasting “periods of heavy rain or showers with possible thunderstorms. Amounts may approach warning criteria about isolated areas. Low chance of upgrading to a warning”.

Mercer said this weather will linger about the South Island until late in the afternoon, and improve into a showery day on Sunday.

This comes after a tornado blasted through Auckland yesterday, with a building collapsing in the high winds, while torrential rain buffeted the city.

Nelson and Marlborough declared states of emergency, with dozens of households being forced to evacuate due to rising floodwaters.

Nelson, Marlborough and Buller will still have a few showers, some possibly heavy during the morning, with thunderstorms possible in the morning and afternoon, Mercer said.

By this evening, “all that kind of bad weather over the South Island is starting to ease”.

There is potential for some heavier showers for coastal Canterbury areas until Sunday morning.

As the weekend progresses, the weather across the country is expected to be an improvement from yesterday but won’t be “good”, Mercer said.

Niwa said residents should expect heavy rain in eastern Otago and Southland, where surface flooding and rapidly rising rivers may occur today.

Auckland thunderstorm risk

After a day of severe weather, thunderstorms threaten Auckland from about 3am until late morning.

“We’re getting a really cold air mass moving over, and there’s that potential for thunderstorms, just during the morning, heavy falls, thunderstorms and possibly hail as well.

“We’re going to be in that sort of westerly flow with showers, and those showers are going to continue through Sunday,” Mercer said.

Chilly South Island temperatures to kick off school holidays

Mercer said after an unseasonably warm period, South Islanders will feel temperatures plummet this weekend.

“It’s going to be quite cold and potentially snowy to quite low levels about Otago and Southern Canterbury.

“We are expecting snow to get down to maybe about 300m about inland Southland tomorrow morning.

“We’re getting temperatures into the low teens in most of the South Island, though in those inland parts we’ll probably be lucky to get into double figures, so places like Wānaka, Queenstown, Alexandra.”

The good news is there will likely be a good dumping of snow for South Island skifields.

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