A possible tornado hit Thames this morning, downing trees and cutting power to hundreds of homes. Video / Jason Shaw
Almost 1800 lightning strikes have been recorded in the North Island today as severe thunderstorms sweep across the North Island.
It comes as previous severe thunderstorm warnings and watches over Rotorua, Gisborne, and the Bay of Plenty have been lifted.
An orange heavy rain warning remainsin place for the Bay of Plenty, east of Ōpōtiki, until 11pm, with intensities of 10 to 20mm per hour likely.
In a post to X this afternoon, the MetService reported almost 1800 lightning strikes had pounded the North Island by 3.13pm. The majority were striking the central North Island.
Niwa earlier recorded more than 600 lightning strikes just offshore from the Coromandel Peninsula and Bay of Plenty between 8.30am and 9.30am.
A heavy rain watch remains in place for the rest of Bay of Plenty to 6pm tonight.
Surface flooding was earlier reported across the Hauraki Plains and western areas of the Coromandel Peninsula after thunderstorms swept through the region this morning.
MetService also recorded 36.2mm of rainfall in Whitianga between 8am and 9am.
Flooding was also reported on social media in Pāpāmoa.
MetService said a low-pressure system west of the North Island was expected to move eastwards across New Zealand today, bringing rain to central and northern regions.
The heaviest rain was expected over the Coromandel Peninsula, Bay of Plenty, and the Tasman district.
Thunderstorms across the Bay of Plenty this morning brought some heavy rain and strong winds.
At 9.52am, the MetService weather radar detected severe thunderstorms near Tauranga, Te Puke, Mount Maunganui and offshore, and Pāpāmoa.
These severe thunderstorms were moving towards the southeast, and are expected to lie near Te Puke, Pāpāmoa and Paengaroa at 10.22am and near Te Puke, Pukehina, Pongakawa Valley and Paengaroa at 10.52am.
“These thunderstorms are expected to be accompanied by torrential rain and damaging wind gusts,” MetService said.
The North Island isn’t out of the firing line yet however, with a severe thunderstorm watch to come into effect overnight for Waikato, Waitomo and Taranaki.
“This is an alert for the potential of a few small tornadoes about the western North Island between about Port Waikato and Cape Egmont early on Thursday morning,“ MetService said.
MetService said the tornadoes could occur with or without thunderstorms and are expected to be “very localised and short-lived”, but could cause extensive damage.
Thunderstorms, ‘tornado’ wreaks havoc in Thames
Following a morning where the district was lashed by wild weather, the Thames-Coromandel Council said in an update that things had “settled down”, but some more rain on the way was indicated by rain radar.
“There have been multiple reports of a tornado in Thames this morning, however, from the effects and the size this was a squall, albeit a strong one.
“If we had experienced a tornado there would have been a path of destruction through town. Two Building Team staff were dispatched to verify that this was the case firsthand,” a statement on the council’s Facebook page read.
A transformer had also “suffered rapid disassembly”, leaving hundreds of houses without power in the area.
PowerCo’s online outage map reported 572 Thames properties were affected by an unplanned outage at about 8am.
“There have been reports of blocked drains and surface flooding, which is expected given rainfall intensities of 35mm/h.”
Concrete benches moved metres, seagulls were tossed in the wind, windows rattled and planks of wood flew into the sky as the squall swept through Thames at about 9am.
“The wind was just out there. I’ve heard the siren go off 1000 times.”
MetService meteorologist Ngaire Wotherspoon said it had not yet confirmed a tornado took place in Thames, but “the ingredients” for such an event were present.
“We are in quite a converter situation right now,” Wotherspoon told the Waikato Herald.
“There’s a lot of uplift in the atmosphere. There are thunderstorm watches out and there’s a significant line of thunderstorms that have gone through Thames, over the Coromandel Peninsula and Whitianga.”
