Tornado touches down
An amateur photographer captured the moment a tornado came tearing through North Taranaki on a day of wild weather that also brought galeforce winds, thunderstorms and hail the size of tablespoons.
Geoff Christophers was driving on State Highway 3, towards New Plymouth, about 2.10pm yesterday when he saw the tornado.
‘‘I was just before the Methanex plant and it appeared to pass somewhere near. It crossed the road in front of me, perhaps half-a-kilometre away,’’ Christophers, an employment placement manager, said.
‘‘I pulled over to the side of the road and it was a few paddocks away to the south.
‘‘It looked pretty cool. You don’t see twisters every day in New Zealand.’’
Director of business development at Methanex Stuart McCall, based in Auckland, said there had been some minor damage to the Motunui plant but no one was hurt. ‘‘It was all a bit of excitement,’’ he said. ‘‘I was on the phone to someone at the New Plymouth office when the torrential rain hit and I could hear it through the line.’’
Simon Neustroski, saw the twister from the farm where he works, which is 30 metres from where the tornado hit.
‘‘We were out the back of the shed and the tornado came through and one of the guys jumped off the tractor and yelled ‘tornado’ and then we went out and had a look and it was pretty powerful, it was good to see, a good experience.’’
New Plymouth Fire and Emergency New Zealand senior station officer Blake Marston said a roller door and a farm shed had been damaged.
Marston said there had been a number of weather-related callouts on Monday. There were
three jobs for flooding in Oakura and seven flooding and hail-related jobs in Waitara, he said.
When the hail hit Waitara woman Steph Kopa’s home she thought the apocalypse was happening.
‘‘I thought it was dead sparrows falling from the sky,’’ Kopa said.
‘‘They started out the size of a thumbnail and ended up the size of a tablespoon.’’
The storm hit around 10am Monday but Kopa said they weren’t sure because they were distracted by the ‘‘ice falling from the sky’’. ‘‘I went to see what was smashing on to my roof. I live next to a kindy so thought it might have been kids throwing things.’’
Gregg Simpson said his home was also pelted by the hail.
Simpson’s home has a clear light covering, which ended up with 20 holes from the hail stones. ‘‘I was sitting talking on the phone and they started falling. I said to the lady on the phone ‘can you hear that?’,’’ Simpson said. ‘‘It could have been worse, it could have been a broken window.’’
MetService had issued a severe weather warning for New Plymouth on Sunday night, predicting heavy rain and thunderstorms until 6pm Monday, with peak intensities of 15 to 25 millimetres an hour.
New Plymouth had received the heaviest rainfall by 1pm on Monday, with 64.5mm falling between 12am and
1pm, followed closely by North Egmont with 61mm. Stratford and Ha¯ wera also received heavy rain with 40mm and
30mm respectively.
National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research meteorologist Seth Carrier explained due to Taranaki’s vulnerable location next to the Tasman Sea, the region is usually the first to get hit with storms.
‘‘For thunderstorms you need atmospheric instability and you get atmospheric instability through warmer air and warmer water.’’