While today's forecast is for fresh southwesterly winds dying out and generally fine, northwesterly gusts are expected tomorrow. This comes after yesterday's wild weather which wreaked havoc on SH5 yesterday.
The accident occurred just a couple of minutes before the call came in that another truck had overturned - on the Napier-Hastings Expressway just south of the Tutaekuri River bridge near the Pakowhai Rd turn-off.
"They both came in pretty well around the same time - that was when the big winds came through," Mr Smith said.
A light truck operated by Home Direct was struck by the blast and sent sliding out of control for about 30m and on to the other side of the expressway. It ended up crashing into a ditch.
Both occupants were able to get out and were not injured, but were checked over by St John Ambulance officers at the scene.
The passenger in the truck told people at the scene he was "really scared" it was going to flip over completely.
"It all seemed to happen so slowly."
The incident caused traffic delays while emergency crews worked to remove the truck.
The driver of the overturned truck and trailer operated by Mt Maunganui-based Waharoa Transport at Mohaka was also uninjured with St John Ambulance not called to attend.
The crash did however block both lanes and "road closed" warning signs leading to the SH5 turn-off from SH2 were activated.
The highway re-opened just after 2pm after the unit, which was empty at the time of the crash, was removed.
While Napier fire crews had a relatively quiet time of it their Hastings counterparts were called to attend the overturned light truck at the expressway as well as a tree which came down near Mangateretere which blocked one lane of SH2.
The highway was soon re-opened after firefighters "dealt with" the downed tree with a chainsaw.
Hastings District Council crews were also called to clear a fallen tree off Karamu Rd which blocked part of the road.
Napier City Council works department crews had not responded to any trees down but faced a clean-up of branches as well as palm fronds along Kennedy Rd and across Clive Square.
There were only minor delays to a couple of flights through Hawke's Bay Airport, with airport commercial manager Wayne Wootten saying while it was "pretty blustery" there had been no major issues.
"They just had to hold a couple of flights for take-off when big gusts were coming through."
The wild weather was whipped up by a strong west to southwesterly airflow which passed over the country, bringing not only strong westerly winds to most places but also some showers and heavy thunderstorms and hail further south. Gusts of up to 120km/h were recorded in some parts of Wairarapa.
The windstorms were the last of the wild stuff for a while, WeatherWatch analyst Philip Duncan said.
"Better weather is promised," he said adding that warm and dry conditions would dominate most of the remainder of the week, although some wind would hang around.
A severe weather warning issued by MetService for the region was lifted last night as strong winds eased.
Central Fire Communications shift manager Jan Wills said there were no further weather-related emergency calls received yesterday evening.
