A Fire and Emergency NZ spokesman confirmed 12 homes have been damaged by a tornado. That damage ranged from minor right through to a roof being completely ripped off.
Despite the number of homes hit, there have been no reports of injuries.
A USAR team from Auckland was currently en-route to the scene in Coopers Beach.
Two fire crews will remain at the scene helping with the clean up until USAR crews arrive. Civil Defence and police were also responding, the spokesman said.
Bad weather is battering much of the North Island and Air New Zealand has also warned travelers there were likely to be disruptions to flights in and out of Wellington this afternoon.
While flights were currently scheduled to depart on time, the airline was expecting weather conditions to deteriorate and cause disruption to flights later today.
With poor weather forecast throughout the North Island, the airline was also recommending all customers booked to travel to or from a North Island airport check the
arrivals and departure page on the Air New Zealand website for their flight status.
The airline said anyone booked on a domestic flight to or from Wellington from 1pm would be given ticket flexibility. Customers would be sent notifications about how they can make changes to their booking online.
A Coopers Beach resident has posted a photo of the damage to one house to Facebook with corrugated iron and planks of wood strewn across the property.
The homeowner also posted a photo of their trampoline getting thrown around during the storm.
The home's deck was also broken, with part of the railing broken off.
A Torsby Rd resident said she was sleeping from a night shift when she was woken by an almighty bang.
"[There was] a loud boom. The neighbours roof must have flown off onto my side and damaged my deck. Tiles are ripped of one corner of my roof and broken spouting."
She said no one was in the house at the time and believed it was a holiday home.
She described the house as having "major" roof damage.
Since the storm, police had driven around to affected areas to make sure all the residents were okay, including herself.
Another resident said the winds had since dropped and there was blue sky.
"[It's] blue sky at the moment and as still as anything," she said.
One resident said: "Roof off. Decking rails come off. Tramp upside down. Bushes ripped out."
Another resident wrote on Facebook that their neighbour's caravan had been flipped by the tornado.
Metservice earlier warned of tornados in northern and eastern areas and squally thunderstorms were expected across Northland, Auckland and Coromandel Peninsula in the morning.
This comes as strong blustery winds, squally thunderstorms and downpours are set to hammer central New Zealand and the upper North Island, including Auckland.
A strong wind warning has been put in place for Auckland including Great Barrier Island, Marlborough Sounds and Wellington, with the southerly gales in the capital this afternoon expected to reach 120kmh.
Squally thunderstorms are expected across Northland, Auckland and Coromandel Peninsula this morning.
The average wind speed in Auckland had already hit 28kmh and was expected to climb to 36kmh by 10am, according to the Metservice. The rain was also expected to hit Auckland by 10am and continue through until at least 4pm.
The organisation also warned those cycling and walking to take care and watch out for debris with strong gales and heavy rain expected.
The poor weather caused a short delay to this morning's Great Barrier Air flight to the island. The first flight of the day was delayed by 15 minutes due to bad weather on the island, the airline confirmed.
No flights to or from Auckland Airport had currently been delayed due to poor weather, an airport spokeswoman said.
According to MetService, these thunderstorms may bring heavy rain of 10-25mm, and strong wind gusts of 90-110kmh, along with a low risk of localised downpours of 25-40mm.
"However there is moderate risk that some of the thunderstorms may become severe, bring localised damaging gusts greater than 110kmh and localised tornadoes, especially to northern and eastern areas."
Wind gusts of this strength can batter trees and power lines, and may make driving hazardous.
According to MetService, if any tornadoes do occur, they will be localised.
The extreme weather is thanks to a deepening low pressure system that will track quickly from the Tasman Sea across the North Island.
This intense pressure system is expected to bring brief spells of heavy rain to many parts of the North Island and the top of the South Island.
There is a heavy rain watch in place for Northland this morning, as well as for Auckland, Great Barrier Island, Coromandel Peninsula, Waikato, northwest Nelson and Bay of Plenty throughout most of the day.
Further south a heavy snow warning is in place in Marlborough where rain may turn to snow down to 500m.
Forecaster Weatherwatch.co.nz is warning of huge waves on the west coast of the country from Thursday.
The forecaster predicts waves over Thursday, Friday and Saturday could exceed 10m.
