The weather deteriorated late on Saturday afternoon during our weekend away in Levin. Thunder crashed loudly overhead, lightning flashed across the sky, and hail came down raining down. It promised to be a wild night. But we had got off very lightly in Levin. What we didn’t realize till we heard a news broadcast was that a tornado had torn through the Kapiti Coast, damaging houses and causing chaos on roads. The twister and a hail storm hit at around 4pm just north of Waikanae, inflicting most damage on three rural houses..
MET SERVICE: Wellington weather radar at the time of the Waikanae tornado.
Many trees were uprooted and flung about, onto homes, across the road, and smashed right through a caravan, trapping the occupants inside. We can only imagine the terror the people inside must have felt as the caravan was smashed like matchsticks.
Photo by KEVIN STENT - ( not one of our camping group, luckily)
Those attempting to drive through the storm had a very rough time too. Vehicles on nearby State Highway One were knocked about by the tornado. One car was found on its side lying in a ditch, and a van was picked up and thrown five metres into a paddock. It was reported that sheets of corrugated iron were flying through the air and narrowly missing cars. The Met Service says tornadoes are not unusual during thunderstorms, and stormy weather was forecast for most of the weekend. As we returned home on Sunday we saw evidence of the many trees felled by the storm, but most had been cleared off the roads. Strong wind was whipping “froth” off the sea onto the adjacent road along State Highway One. Thank goodness we made it home safely in all that wild weather. Although the caravan has suffered a broken spring – but that’s another story!.
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