Bay of Plenty weather: 380 lightning strikes in 48 hours

About 380 lightning strikes hit the Bay of Plenty at the weekend. Photo / Andrew Warner

About 380 lightning strikes hit the Bay of Plenty over the weekend, MetService says.

A lightning strike caused a power outage in Paengaroa yesterday afternoon, affecting at least 773 properties in Maketu, Little Waihī and Paengaroa.

MetService meteorologist Alwyn Bakker said there were about 380 lightning strikes in the Bay of Plenty between midnight on Friday and midnight on Sunday.

“That’s specifically on land. There were a lot more lightning strikes off-shore.”

Bakker said nationally, there were 19,000 lightning strikes over the weekend, most of which were off-shore.

Bakker said this was a “fair amount” but it was not “really big”, recalling one weekend when 200,000 lightning strikes were recorded nationally.

A Fire and Emergency New Zealand spokeswoman said the only weather-related incidents it responded to on Sunday afternoon were a power line that had been brought down by a slip on a bank and flooding in a house. Both were in Maketu.

MetService issued a heavy rain watch at the weekend, which was in place in parts of the Bay of Plenty from 8am yesterday to 6am today.

Possible thunderstorms and periods of heavy rain were forecast for the Bay of Plenty from Edgecumbe westwards.

MetService is forecasting a low-pressure system to move from the Tasman Sea onto northern New Zealand on Thursday or Friday, bringing a “prolonged period” of wet weather for northern and eastern regions – particularly Coromandel, the Bay of Plenty and Tairawhiti/Gisborne.

Its latest severe weather outlook found there was “moderate” confidence – or a roughly 40 per cent likelihood – that rainfall levels would warrant warnings in Northland on Wednesday and Thursday, Coromandel and Bay of Plenty from Whakatāne westward from Thursday to Saturday.