The MetService issued a severe weather warning at 8pm, following gusts of up to 130kmh in Dunedin and North Otago which had the "potential to rip down trees", forecaster Chris Nobel said.
Gusts up to 135kmh were recorded at Swampy Summit above Dunedin last night, and winds of 100kmh buffeted Dunedin, causing power outages to homes in Andersons Bay, Ocean Grove and Highcliff.
The Fire Service was called to Portobello Rd at 6.30pm after corrugated iron ripped off a boatshed brought down powerlines.
A crew was working to repair the damage last night, a Delta spokesman said.
Gusts of up to about 100kmh near Twizel picked up soil from newly-worked paddocks.
Former Ohau Downs farmer Don Blue, who has lived in the Omarama area for more than 50 years, said the dust storms were as bad as he had seen in the past two or three years.
The soil was coming off an area that had been cleared of a plantation of wilding pines.
The Kurow fire brigade was called to a fire in Hakataramea Valley Rd about 3pm.
The fire was quickly brought under control.
About 4.30pm, the Kurow, Duntroon, Windsor and Weston brigades, with units, pumps and tankers, attended a fire in a stack of firewood in Tiverstowe Rd, off Tokarahi-Ngapara Rd, about 4.30pm.
In both cases, firefighters faced northwest gusts up to 50kmh.
About 5.40pm, a pine tree in Redcastle Rd, Oamaru, was blown across the main trunk railway line, blocking it.
A train was stopped until the line could be cleared.
Coronet Peak, Mt Hutt, Treble Cone, Snow Park, Mt Dobson, Roundhill and Ohau skifields were all closed yesterday by gale-force norwesters.
Wind speeds of up to 160kmh were recorded yesterday at the ridgeline of the Remarkables mountain range.
State Highway 6, near the Crown Range Rd junction, was temporarily blocked by a fallen tree yesterday morning.
The temperature in Queenstown reached a high of 23degC at 11am.
MetService weather ambassador Bob McDavitt, of Auckland, said gusts reached speeds of up to 57kmh between 11am and noon at the weather station at Queenstown Airport.
The wind blew at a gale-force 74kmh at the airport at 2pm.
In Central Otago, temperatures reached 27degC and strong winds persisted, getting stronger in the afternoon.
Central Otago District Council principal rural fire officer Owen Burgess said anyone considering a burn-off this week needed to be aware of weather conditions.
On Sunday, firefighters were called to burns at Ettrick and Earnscleugh where vegetation had ignited on rural properties.
Wind brought a power line down on to grass causing a fire near Blackmans Rd at Earnscleugh.
Firefighters were called to a vegetation fire at Roxburgh East just before 4pm yesterday.
At the same time, the Omakau and Alexandra volunteer fire brigades were called to a vegetation fire near Omakau, and earlier in the day Cromwell firefighters attended a fire at Bannockburn when a stack of firewood ignited.
