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Thunderstorms, hail set to strike Auckland

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Thu, 12 Apr 2018, 5:17PM
The storm will continue tonight while thousands of homes are still without power. (Photo / NZ Herald)
The storm will continue tonight while thousands of homes are still without power. (Photo / NZ Herald)

Thunderstorms, hail set to strike Auckland

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Thu, 12 Apr 2018, 5:17PM

Aucklanders need to brace for another wild night as thunderstorms, hail, heavy rain, lightning and tornadoes are forecast for the region.

A fast moving front is forecast to sweep across the North Island tonight and early Friday morning, bringing strong westerly winds that could escalate to gale-force speeds.

West Aucklanders, in particular, are being warned of "damaging winds" that will be highly localised.

MetService meteorologist Georgina Griffiths said tonight's weather is expected to be different to the Tuesday's destructive storm. People living in eastern or central parts of Auckland are unlikely to experience gusts as large as previously seen.

But for those living out west, especially along the west coast beaches, there remains a good chance of experiencing briefly damaging winds again tonight.

"During the last event, damaging winds were widespread and affected most people. This is not the case tonight – we expect severe winds to be rather localised this time around," said Griffiths.

A night of weather mayhem blasted Auckland on Tuesday with winds gusting up to 213km/hr in the Manukau Heads.

The wind tore roofs from houses and uprooted trees that came crashing down on more than 100 power lines across the region. At its peak 180,000 homes were without power.

Currently, 35,000 customers are still without power and/or hot water. Vector's outage field staff are working through the list of more than 690 faults, power outages, and reports of damage on the network.

MetService is reporting a thunder, lightning and tornado risk due to hit Auckland from 8pm tonight.

Exposed places in Northland, Auckland, Great Barrier Island, Coromandel Peninsula, Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Hawkes Bay and the Tararua District could see strong winds rise to severe gales from 8pm tonight until 2am Friday.

A severe thunderstorm watch has been issued for Northland through to Waikato. MetService reported that it could bring "further localised strong wind gusts, and short periods of heavy rain and hail" between 8pm and midnight.

Western parts will cop the brunt of this while eastern and central areas are less likely to experience thundery conditions.

"This means that the broad area carries a risk for severe gale winds, and in addition, smaller, more localised spots within the broader area could experience squally conditions associated with the passage of thunderstorms, with gusts 110km/h or more," MetService reported.

Weather Watch weather analyst Philip Duncan said the bad weather should move off quickly tonight and make way for a showery Friday that clears in the evening.

The biggest shock of the weekend would be the temperatures on Saturday morning, Duncan said. It would be -4C in parts of Southland while the Bay of Islands would wake up to a balmy 18C.

"It's just because there's a little bit of warm air across the top of New Zealand producing a bit of rain. The rest of New Zealand still has that southerly cold air."

Sunday should see the country warm a little bit before being hit with more cold temperatures and downpours on Monday.

"All next week we're dominated by rain and wind on the west coast and dry and sunny on the east."

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