Cyclone Cook brought with it pounding rain, extreme winds and walnuts.
Thousand of walnuts have washed ashore at Mount Maunganui today.
Niwa climate scientist Nava Fedaeff was walking her dog along the Omanu section of the beach when she discovered the walnuts at the high-tide mark.
"Being a climate scientist, I always love going to the beach after a storm. There's always something interesting to be found," she said.
"The whole way down there were walnuts. I would say there were thousands."
Fedaeff used her dog's empty poo bag to collect what walnuts it could fit and went home.
"We cracked them open, and they were fresh as."
Fedaeff said no one else appeared to notice the walnuts earlier today, but expected that would change.
"I've got no idea where there would have come from," she said.
"There was a really large swell last night as well as Cyclone Cook. There was a wave that had been recorded at a maximum height of 12 metres about 6pm, so any big surf like that brings in lots of different things. But where they originated from, I don't know."
As the year draws to a close, Waikato Herald is taking stock of 2024.