Another Taranaki Tornado

[jeffsweather]

Found this on Stuff

Tornado advances plan for new shed
Daily News
3 May 2005

Peter Winter was not planning on building a new shed this year, but a tornado has made the decision for him. The tornado most likely originated somewhere near Buchanan's Bay on the north Taranaki coast between Motunui and Urenui, and travelled at least two kilometres inland in the early hours of yesterday morning.

Mr Winter found a trail of destruction across his pig farm and orchard after he went out to fetch the newspaper in the morning. The first giveaway was the pile of timber and farming supplies strewn around his ute where it had been parked in an open shed. "I saw it and thought, I'm sure I parked the truck further in the shed than that," he said. Corrugated iron from the shed's roof was strewn through the orchard 200m away, and uprooted fig and citrus trees marked the tornado's path.

"It's gone around in the orchard, tearing trees out and throwing them everywhere," Mr Winter said. "I wasn't quite planning on building a new shed just yet. Mr Winter's wife Gill said that the storm had plucked out windbreak trees and thrown them a whole paddock away.

The Winters' neighbour, Aaron Hatcher, was watching television when the tornado came through. "It was raining and then it was still. "Then the house started to shake and I felt the vacuum," he said. Mr Hatcher went to check on his wife, who had been woken by the weather, and returned to find the tornado had ripped off the roof of his porch and destroyed a woodshed. He said the feeling was like being in a giant vacuum cleaner. "I haven't counted the sheep, but I think they're all still there," he said.

In August last year a tornado destroyed a family home along the same coast, east of Waitara. A woman died at the scene and her grandson died later from his injuries.

MetService forecaster Oliver Druce said the coastal environment combined with cumulo-nimbus cloud and thunderstorms were the conditions required for a tornado. "That's the favoured area, it comes up off the sea. "Mr Druce said the shed-smashing tornado was probably a small one, but it was unusual for it to travel so far inland. "They are normally very short-lived."