After a very calm morning a wall of wind hit many exposed parts of Auckland around late morning and into early afternoon says WeatherWatch.co.nz.

Peak gusts were around 110km/h in the most exposed parts of the city – many suburbs had gusts around 90km/h.

Winds of this speed are mostly below damaging threshold but wind tunnels (like in the CBD between buildings) and parts of exposed suburbs could see minor damage, especially branches breaking and powerlines being broken.

NewstalkZB and NZ Herald both reported some damage as a result of the sudden wind gusts, mostly branches down and some windows broken.

The warm wind direction pushed Auckland’s high up to 21 degrees, well above what both main forecasters were predicting. This afternoon a cooler wind will set in.

“This is the rough weather that was expected to arrive around dawn, but is running a few hours later. This afternoon in Auckland winds will change from gale nor’westers to blustery sou’westers”.

As the wind changes direction it means some will have conditions ease while others will see winds building. “Generally speaking we expect the worst of the winds to be around the time of the wind transition, which is midday” says Mr Duncan.

Today’s gusty winds are not going to be a repeat of what Wellington had yesterday either with WeatherWatch.co.nz saying that for the most part today’s wind is strong simply because it’s a northerly. “Once it swings west to south west it will feel more like a typical windy spring pattern for Auckland” says Mr Duncan.

As of 12 noon the strong northerlies were already starting to turn to cooler, blustery, sou’west with wind gusts still hitting 90km/h.

The windy change was predicted – but was running a few hours late.  That, coupled with a significant calmness before the gales moved in, meant the windy change took many Aucklanders by surprise.

Winds are now slowly easing.

– WeatherWatch.co.nz