The night of 700 lightning strikes

MetService meteorologist Lisa Murray said many of the strikes were cloud-to-cloud which people would not have seen, but "they certainly would have heard the thunder associated with them". Photo /123RF

If you were feeling a bit sleepy at work yesterday you weren't alone, with people across Northland woken up by a huge storm featuring more than 700 lightning strikes.

The extreme weather arrived just after midnight, with about 700 lightning strikes offshore from Northland in the first four hours of Monday, and another 35 directly over land.

MetService meteorologist Lisa Murray said many of the strikes were cloud-to-cloud and while people would not have seen these, "they certainly would have heard the thunder associated with them".

The thunder and lightning was accompanied by a deluge, with Whangarei getting 20.6 millimetres of rain between 3am and 4am yesterday , and 46.4mm between midnight and 10am when the rain ceased.

Kerikeri experienced a similar downpour, with 21.4mm between 2am and 4am and overnight rainfall of 39.6mm.

"The heaviest rainfall was between midnight and 4am," Ms Murray said. "That's a broad brush as thunderstorms are extremely localised so one place gets it at a time. Overall, things seemed to be at their heaviest in the 2am to 3am period."

Commenters on the Northern Advocate Facebook page yesterday said their Mondayitis was worse than usual following a weekend of interrupted sleep, with fireworks and fierce weather.

Whangarei's Dee Attwood said both her children - 2 and 7 - were up at 3am after being woken by the storm. "The thunder shook our house badly ... I've never experienced bad thunder or lightning like that before."

Andrea Welsh commented that the weather "sounded like a bomb ... I didn't like it at all."

The heavy rainfall watch for Northland was lifted yesterday, as the storm moved south. Showers were possible across the region today, but Northlanders could look forward to a forecast sunny day tomorrow with temperatures in the early to mid 20s.