Fire and Emergency NZ responded to requires help following a twister at 1.20pm on Monday.
An announcement issued at 2.37pm native time mentioned roughly 12 homes within the Moutere space had their roofs lifted or had misplaced their roof fully.
“Additionally, a tree fell onto a car with a person inside in Māpua, but the person was able to get out of the car without requiring assistance and reported only minor abrasions.
“There have additionally been a report of a tree falling onto energy traces, in addition to a tree falling throughout a driveway.”
MetService issued a heavy rain warning and severe thunderstorm watch for the area at 12.47pm.
Heavy rain was expected to last until 6pm while the thunderstorm watch was in place until 3.30pm.
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MetService meteorologist Dan Corrigan said without photo evidence the storm could not be declared as a tornado, but there was a possibility.
There was a risk of large hail, heavy downpours and damaging winds until midday on Tuesday.
“There’s a line of vigorous thunderstorms that is fast paced west to east throughout Nelson, Tasman after which on to Marlborough.
“The worst of it is definitely happening right now with these particularly vigorous thunderstorms that have just moved across, but there is still a risk of more heavy showers and thunderstorms around the rest of the day going into midday tomorrow.
“What we have seen is there is a danger of those sturdy wind gusts and fast-moving thunderstorms of 80 to 100km/h after which an outdoor danger of small tornados.
“It could be that there was some tornadic activity and if there’s footage of a funnel cloud then that’s sure evidence, but these damaging wind gusts can just occur from these really vigorous fast-moving thunderstorm cells as well.”
Fire and Emergency shift supervisor Blair Walklin mentioned crews had been busy responding to weather-related call-outs throughout Nelson and Tasman.
“We had what’s been described as a twister and heavy rain go through the Nelson and Tasman area, and we’ve received multiple calls to some roofs lifting on properties.”
A MetService put up on Twitter mentioned there have been three major traces of thunderstorms all transferring east.
One was crossing Nelson metropolis, transferring in the direction of Marlborough, one other was between the North and South islands, heading to Kāpiti Coast, and the opposite was east of Taranaki.
Network Tasman was experiencing outages throughout Upper and Lower Moutere, Richmond, Māpua, Takaka, Rīwaka and surrounding areas.
The largest faults had been in Golden Bay and Mōtueka, however energy had since been restored, operations supervisor Robert Derks mentioned.
“It was quite a violent wee storm, it passed through quite quickly with lots of lightning and tonnes of rain.”
Derks mentioned bushes had fallen down over traces and different faults had risen in the course of the storm, however workers had been working to revive energy as quickly as attainable.
“We’re narrowing in on the areas and I will put a post up once we know a bit more, but at the moment we’re still just dealing with working with what we know.”
Tasman Mayor Tim King had been in touch with emergency responders who informed him in regards to the twister that rapidly tore by the area.
“It’s been an interesting morning, thunderstorm, heavy rain and strong winds,” King mentioned.
“There was a tornado through part of Tasman out towards Māpua and Mōtueka.
“Fire and Emergency NZ are managing it, so that they’re working all of the comms and communications. “
King urged people to keep themselves safe, stay home and only drive if necessary.
“Any time there’s wild climate simply watch out driving, do not actually exit and have a nosy.”
A spokesperson for Tasman Civil Defence said staff were ready to assist the community with welfare support if necessary.
Source: www.9news.com.au
