Extreme weather hits Bay

Two small tornadoes cut a swathe through parts of the Bay of Plenty yesterday in a stormy start to Easter.

One bowled over a furniture truck on State Highway 2 at Pongakawa, about 10km from Te Puke, and ripped much of the roof off a new house at nearby Otamarakau.

Trees were uprooted and powerlines felled in brief mid-morning chaos in the rural area between Te Puke and Whakatane and also around Kawerau.

Parts of the Coromandel Peninsula and Bay of Plenty suffered flash flooding during a deluge of heavy rain.

Pukehina volunteer fire brigade chief officer Errol Watts said a powerful wind gust tipped the truck on to its side amid heavy rain, thunder and lightning. The driver was unhurt.

Brigade volunteers were kept busy attending to damaged roofs.

What appeared to have been a "mini" tornado demolished a hay barn before hitting the Otamarakau house on a lifestyle block near the sea.

No one was injured but the house took a good soaking, he said. The living room was the only part "semi-dry" enough to store the family's furniture.

Maketu fire chief Butch Waterhouse said the tornado seemed to cut a random path through Pukehina, Maketu and Pongakawa, plucking out a number of trees but leaving others beside them still standing.

Kawerau suffered a similar fate, with a twister bringing trees and power lines down in its wake.

District council engineering officer Brian Darbyshire said there was also localised flooding yesterday, which followed an earlier storm on Thursday evening.

Kawerau Four Square owner Fanjay Sharma was outside when the wind became "very gusty, like a mini tornado" carrying shop signs away in a blast that lasted about 30 minutes.

"It was unreal. I have never seen wind like that before. It was scary but exciting."

In the South Island, residents of two houses about 45km southwest of Nelson were evacuated when river levels rose after more than 172mm of rain fell overnight in some areas.