The Wairoa River in Te Puna broke its banks and flooded Te Puna Station Rd, and parts of Maketu were also swamped. Parts of Hairini Bridge were closed as water lapped across the road and businesses in Judea were flooded.
Wave heights, or the peak of the swell, were reaching 7.6m by early afternoon at the Port of Tauranga's A-buoy off the entrance to Tauranga Harbour.
Matua resident George Corban said water in the Matua Estuary was the highest he had seen since living in the area since 1964.
Another resident said the Matua Saltmarsh was also flooded. "In 47 years I've never seen anything like it."
At least two flights scheduled to land at Tauranga Airport yesterday were diverted away from the city, however, airport manager Ray Dumble said three or four flights managed to land in the morning.
A flight coming from Christchurch had to be diverted due to the crosswinds, which reached 45 knots.
Te Puke and Maketu ward councillor Kevin Marsh said there were incredibly large breaker waves in the usually calm estuary and the local diving board, normally about 10 feet out of the water, could barely be seen.
The Western Bay District Council opened an Emergency Operation Centre at the request of emergency services which had been inundated with flooding calls.
The council communications team leader, Alistair Gray, said king tides had flooded some low-lying coastal areas in the district.
In the district, tidal surges had been reported in Little Waihi Reserve, specifically the Bledisloe holiday park, Maketu Rd by the estuary, Waihi Beach at Two Mile Creek and Te Puna Station Rd by the Wairoa River, Gray said.
The Tauranga City Council closed the base track around Mauao at 7am for safety, however, the summit track remained open. Access to Moturiki (Leisure) Island was also closed.
Access to Beach Rd, Otumoetai, was open to only residents due to flooding of Kulim Park and traffic lights were down at the Bellevue roundabout.
Extreme winds and heavy rain kept Bay of Plenty firefighters busy attending to 24 weather-related callouts from 6pm Thursday to 6am yesterday.
Fire and Emergency NZ communications shift manager Megan Ruru said there was nothing of major destruction.
"It was mainly trees down across roads, power lines down, nothing too serious."
According to Powerco's website, about 5000 homes had experienced power outages across the Bay of Plenty yesterday as the storm caused damage to power lines.
The weather also put a dampener on the Bryan Adams concert scheduled to take place at Mount Maunganui last night but postponed. The concert will now be held on Sunday at ASB Baypark Stadium.
Port of Tauranga manager of operations Phil Julian said high seas suspended shipping operations at the port yesterday.
He said sea conditions would be monitored overnight and the port was likely to be reopened this morning.
A MetService spokesman said 62mm of rain fell in Tauranga from 1pm Thursday until 6pm yesterday.
The average wind speed recorded yesterday was 50km/h with the highest wind gust clocking in at 80km/h at 11am yesterday.
