Tornado rips through Northland farm shed

Mark Webb heard a roaring noise as a tornado ripped through a nearby farm shed. Photo / Michael Cunningham

The damage caused by a tornado that ripped through parts of Whangārei has notched up more carnage, with a farm shed being torn apart and roofing iron strewn among the tree tops.

On Friday the destructive spinning columns of wind touched down in Ōakura, where trees were skittled, a Whangārei boatyard where boats toppled off cradles and now a farm shed at Mata has been identified as being blown apart by a tornado.

Roof iron was tossed into the upper branches of a shelterbelt of pine trees nearby with sheets also scattered across a paddock. One piece was blown about 100m away.

Sheets of roofing iron from a farm shed ended up in pine trees at a Mata property. Photo / Michael Cunningham

One of the pines was snapped in half and as the tornado passed through the property some mature totara trees were uprooted and branches snapped off.

Mark Webb, who lives about 100m from the farm shed, was inside and said the power had gone off on Friday night before the tornado hit about 7.30pm.

"I was sitting there with the candles going, hoping the power would come back on, when I heard a roaring noise," Webb said.

"I said to my mate that it sounded like a tornado and he laughed at me."

Webb described how the "roaring" noise stopped and then there was silence.

"I thought we must have been in the eye of it because everything went quiet then it just started raining."

It wasn't until the next morning that he saw the damage caused by the tornado and its path.

Trees lining State Highway 1 near Hewletts Rd were hit with branches strewn across the road, then through a paddock through the farm shed and then away to the west taking out trees on its exit.

Tornado destruction at Mata. Photo/ Michael Cunningham

The Norsand boatyard in Whangārei had been hit less than an hour earlier, with six boats in the yard being blown off their cradles. It took just 12 seconds but in that time a tornado blasted through the yard on Fraser St.