Wild weather: Power restored in Wellington area

Lightning lights up the sky above Wellington. Photo / imranhere2 Twitter

More lightning is lighting up the skies over Wellington, temporarily cutting power to thousands.

The stormy weather has rolled back in to the Capital this morning.

Wellington Electricity said more than 18,000 customers were without power this morning following the latest lightning strikes.

The power has since been restored.

The outage was affecting those in Wainuiomata, Seaview, Petone, Gracefield and Korokoro.

More than a thousand lightning strikes lit up the sky and thunder boomed across the top of the South Island and bottom of the North overnight.

MetService has warned of more rain, squalls, strong winds, thunderstorms and even coastal tornadoes today as another front makes its way across the country.

For Auckland, there is a moderate risk of thunderstorms about midday, which are likely to be accompanied by heavy rain, hail and strong winds up to 110km/h.

There is also a risk of severe thunderstorms from the Waikato to the Kapiti Coast this morning and MetService has warned there could be small coastal tornadoes.