Wild weather thrashing the country

The wild weather is continuing to produce blustery winds that are buffeting parts of both the North and South Island.

Falling branches knocked out power in parts of Auckland today.

Vector says some areas of Rodney, Helensville and Greenhithe are still without electricity.

The wild weather kept the fire service busy in the North Island.

Shift manager Scott Osmond says they attended more than 70 weather-related calls from Auckland to Rotorua.

He says most were related to downed trees and branches .

He says a few buildings were also damaged by high winds especially in downtown Auckland.

"There's a couple in central Auckland - one apartment building had some damage to a roof but nothing major."

"Almost all of them are related to trees down, trees down either on roads or on power lines and one or two with some building damage, but nothing major."

Scott Osmond says there have been no reports of injury.

It's a different story in the South Island.

Fire Service Spokesman Andrew Norris says despite the nasty weather they haven't had too many call outs.

"We've had a couple of crews out checking several buildings in Christchurch where there was reports of loose roofing iron and similar problems but nothing major at all and most crews have remained on station for the day."

Philip Duncan of WeatherWatch says there's very heavy rain across the west coast of the South Island and some isolated thunderstorms popping up as well.

He says the wild weather will linger for some time as the big low starts to deepen around the eastern side of the South Island and the high winds will continue.

"We're seeing very, very strong winds blowing around the Auckland region especially, but also Bay of Plenty there are gusts around 100-120 kilometres an hour in those areas so blustery, blustery winds on the outer edges of this low."

200 tonne rocks the size of cars are among landslip debris that's closed Milford Road in the South Island.

The slip will need several days work before the road can reopen.

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