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About 50 properties have been damaged after a tornado tore through the Tasman district near Nelson on Monday afternoon.
The tornado swept through the area about 1.20pm - that is about 16 hours after another tornado caused damage to properties in East Auckland on Sunday night.
In East Auckland, trees snapped and at least 51 homes were damaged as extreme winds powered through Golflands to East Tāmaki, including Tamaki Heights, Flatbush and Huntington Park about 9pm.
No-one had been reported as injured in the area though, and about 10 properties had to be yellow stickered as a result of last night's damage.
In the upper South Island, Fire and Emergency NZ said about 12 houses either had lifted roofs or had lost their roofs entirely, mostly in the Upper Moutere area, due to the tornado today.
A tree fell onto a car with a person inside in Māpua, but they escaped with minor abrasions.
There have also been reports of a tree falling onto power lines and a tree falling across a driveway.
FENZ district manager Grant Hayward said home-owners in Upper Moutere were trying to make their properties weather-tight and secure.
"So the damage we're seeing is roofs lost, implements sheds, some houses have been partially destroyed, we've got cars damaged, trees down, orchards destroyed and damaged, so it's quite widespread and quite localised."
The tornado shocked people in the area, Hayward said.
Network Tasman said power had been restored to many homes following the twister, but line crews were still working to repair the damage in some areas.
Contractors were also clearing tree debris on State Highway 60 between Richmond and Motueka, although the road was still open.
Fire and Emergency shift manager Blair Walklin said the weather had cleared later in the afternoon.
"Our crews are currently busy in the area dealing with a range of weather-related events ranging from alarm activations to roofs lifting and houses flooded.
"Our crews are currently assisting members of the public and we ask people to adhere to any road closures and obey emergency service's instructions."
Police urged people to stay indoors rather than risk further harm by travelling to see the damage.
Waka Kotahi was urging holidaymakers returning home over the long Easter weekend to drive to the conditions and be aware they will inevitably face some delays with temporary traffic management and lower speed restrictions in some areas.
Thunderstorms and severe wind gusts
A low-pressure system spinning around in the Tasman Sea is going to bring more thunderstorms, lightning and severe wind gusts to parts of the country from this afternoon after more than 14,000 lightning strikes were recorded yesterday.
MetService meteorologist Dan Corrigan said the places with the highest chance of being affected by this weather were Nelson, Marlborough, Buller, Waikato, King Country and Taranaki.
"These thunderstorms are moving quickly and a lot of them are joined up in lines and are able to feed into the thunderstorms next to each other," said Corrigan.
"These fast-moving lines can bring really strong wind gusts in places where they directly move over."
Corrigan said wind gusts could briefly reach speeds of up to 100kmh.
"That’s enough to cause some damage."
He said damage such as what was seen in eastern Auckland last night is an "outside possibility".
While most of the North Island was sunny this morning, Corrigan said the weather could change at a drop of a hat as the thunderstorms moved closer to the country.
He said it was hard to pinpoint where exactly the thunderstorms would hit but said they would be localised and described each one to be the size of a town.
Corrigan said the storms were spread out throughout the weather system, and the centre of the system was expected to be just off Fiordland tomorrow morning.
He warned that the "gnarliest" weather was not only just in the centre of the system.
"The low-pressure system is a big broad system larger than New Zealand."
Corrigan is urging people to keep a good eye on rain radar.
There are orange heavy rain warnings in place for Westland until 11pm tomorrow, Tasman District northwest of Motueka until 6pm tonight, the Richmond and Bryant Ranges, including the Rai Valley until 6pm tonight and for Taranaki until 3pm today.
- RNZ and NZ Herald