Thousands across the upper North Island have woken up to power outages after strong winds bore down overnight, lifting roofs, toppling trees and downing power lines.
Lines company Powerco confirmed there were around 13,456 customers without power on its electricity network as of 9am on Sunday.
The worst-hit areas were the Coromandel Peninsula and western Bay of Plenty, where crews have been working since early morning to assess damage and begin repairs.
Whangamata, Katikati, and Waihi appeared to be among the centres with large outages.
“What a wild night! We have extra crews in the affected areas,” Powerco said in a statement. “Thank you for your patience and understanding as they work as quickly and safely as possible, assessing the damage, making repairs and restoring power.”
Fire and Emergency NZ shift manager Josh Pennefather said since 6am this morning, it had received 37 weather-related callouts across the Bay of Plenty.
“All were related to the high winds the region is experiencing,” he said.
Reasons for callouts included fallen trees, arcing power lines, roofs lifting, issues with loose roof tiling, a trampoline that was blown away and a garden shed that lifted in the wind.
MetService meteorologist Devlin Lynden told 1News the upper North Island experienced gusts of up to 120km/h “from the west right through to the east”.
“Particularly the Coromandel, as it’s quite exposed, as well as the western Bay of Plenty will have seen gusts in the same kind of range.”
The Golden Valley weather station near Waihi recorded a gust of 150km/h in the early hours of this morning, Lynden said, adding that while the station was “very exposed” it was indicative of the potential for strong gusts across the region.
A strong wind watch was in place for the Coromandel and Bay of Plenty west of Edgecumbe until midnight on Saturday.