I have heaps of them.
I have been keeping weather diarys for the last 23 years

JohnGaul
NZThS

In 2008 we were living in Nelson on 30th July the region was hit by a major wind event from the South East. Much damage was done to the inner city Stoke and Richmond areas. Hundreds of trees many planted back by the original settlers were blown down. The geography of Nelson possibly created some of the problems with the hills surrounding the city causing the wind to accelerate down.

This became apparent as I drove out of Richmond in the afternoon. It was shockingly windy but on approaching my home in Mapua some 10mins away the wind suddenly stopped and things were calm.

This was probably the strangest weather event I have ever experienced.

Most fightening was Cyclone Drena experienced at our home on a hilltop above Long Bay Auckland. The whole house was shaking and noise unbelieveable.

I remember sitting by lake maggorie in Italy and watching this massive lighting storm roll in. We were camping by the lake when the storm hit the camping ground was flooded in parts in about a foot of water. The rain deluge was amazing!. Last year here in Auckland on a fairly overcast day ( nothing special) I looked across the road of my house and low and behold saw a funnel cloud forming. It was very close and hung around for a few minutes then disapated. Not sure if it was a tornado as I could not see the bottom of it, Pretty amazing sight and so unexpected.

About two/three years ago we had a major storm come through out here in Army Bay, Whangaparaoa. Cant quite remember what exactly it was, but I know that the winds got up to 180km/h in the Tiri Channel and came from the east. Our house faced east and was on a hill facing Shakespear Reserve so we were really exposed. The harbour bridge was closed and there was untold damage done. The wind sounded like a freight train – it was really scarey – we had to tape up our windows, had some roof damage and spent several hours holed up in the basement of our house on the west side of the house with my daughter – petrified.

Wellington 1976 floods – December, about a week before Christmas. My wife and I were at work. A friend (with a landrover, thankfully) rang me up to say that he had heard that the Ngaio Gorge was in trouble, and that he would pick my wife and I up from our work places. We started heading for the Ngauranga Gorge via the Hutt Road, but either it was shut or the traffic was moving very slowly. We got onto the motorway, and then got off it around Ngauranga via a maintenance gate. The gorge intersection was flooded but we slowly got through it, and went to our house in Ngaio via Johnsonville and Khandallah. Our friend rang home to find out that access to Petone was not possible, so he spent the night with us, and got home the following morning. My wife was scheduled to go home to Waverley on the railcar the following day, so I took her to Porirua to catch it there. I later went for a walk down Ngaio Gorge to find half the road missing at about midpoint on the gorge. That, from memory, took some weeks to fix. However, my main memory is of a car wedged into the entrance of a small tunnel through which the Kaiwharawhara stream flowed. Earlier that year it snowed in Ngaio. We had only moved into our house November 1975, so we were starting to wonder if we had done the right thing!

The worst weather incident for me was the weather bomb that came thru Levin 3 or 4 years back. Coming home from work to find all the trees down and thru the side of my house! That side of the house looked like the Urewera’s for a few days! Lived off the disaster kit for a few weeks!

It was interesting reading the comments about peoples weather experiences. Ive had the luck to have lived in a few different countries so have experienced what most NZ’ers would call severe weather but in those countries it is considered the norm. Flooding around mackay queensland and being caught in little towns the night sleeping in the car because the road is several metres under water.
Massive electrical storms in north qld almost every night during the summer and rain like you cant imagine.
I do recall one night in cordoba, Argentina when a huge electrical storm was passing the city and I was outside the house when a bolt came down on the footpath accross the road, it was so loud that my ears were ringing for quite some time after, I was moving pretty quicly to get inside after that hehe.

NZ weather is pretty tame really, even our extreme events don’t seem to be that extreme, its a good thing of course but i wonder if forecasters here are a bit bored or envious of countries that have a bit more variety..

I’d recommend people watch the series “Wild weather”, i just watced it the other day, great series.