More than a thousand lightning strikes were recorded across New Zealand in Tuesday's storm, with a majority of them striking Hawke's Bay. Metservice meteorologist Tui McInnes recorded 1119 strikes across the country, with more predicted as storms made their way up the country on Wednesday. "But a vast majority of those strikes occurred over Hawke's Bay," McInnes said. Hail up to 3 centimetres thick in places pummelled Hawke's Bay on Tuesday afternoon, badly damaging some fruit orchards and collapsing a shop roof. Hawke's Bay, the Tararua District and Wairarapa remains on "severe weather watch" with westerly winds expected to change to squally south-westerlies during Wednesday afternoon.

Source: Stuff October 02, 2019 03:45 UTC