Roofs, trees damaged as strong winds hit Hawke's Bay

Napier firefighter Baz Gallagher secures loose roofing material on a house in Lighthouse Road on Napier Hill yesterday evening. Photo/ Warren Buckland.

Strong winds caused havoc yesterday with bins flying, branches falling and some roofs even coming apart.

Firefighters were called to Napier Port and a house on Bluff Hill just after 6pm because of pieces of roofing iron pulling away in the strong winds.

Senior Napier Fire Station officer Bryan Dunphy, who was at the residential address, said the hill was bearing the brunt of the wind.

"The wind is coming straight for the hill and the roof is pretty old so a piece of iron has become loose."

Fireman Baz Gallagher climbed up the ladder and screwed down the iron to secure it to prevent anything falling into the home.

Fire crews at Napier Port also climbed on to the roof to secure the loose piece of roof and a snorkel was on standby.

MetService meteorologist Tom Bell said these winds were strong yesterday but hadn't reached the warning criteria, which was initially put in place for Hawke's Bay on Monday and was expected to be in place until last night.

"Our stations recorded winds gusts of up to 90km/h in some areas and wind speeds of 50km/h which didn't reach what we initially expected."

Mr Bell said these winds should have eased overnight and the winds should change to a southerly today.

With the southerly rain is expected to develop this afternoon and temperatures should drop from the mid twenties to the high teens.

A high of 18C is expected today, which is then dropping to a high of 16C tomorrow. Overnight temperatures would also drop from 11C to 7C tomorrow.

Mr Bell said there was a bit of rain about, but Hawke's Bay should remain fairly dry with the southerly dying out this evening.

On Friday things start to improve again with the southerly flow changing to a northerly and temperatures rising again to 19C.

This was set to stay through the weekend with a high of 19C for both Saturday and Sunday and some periods of rain.