Weather Bomb

We went to the beach and were amazed at the changes, we have never seen the sea as high and large amount of dune had been carried off. Luckily the dune restoration and marram grass and given some protection but you can see where 'cliffs' have been carved into the dunes.

Storm drains had been blocked by sand so I hope there is no more heavy rain for a few days.

The red hot pokers in the hedge were looking very battered and had lost most of their petals but a small very exposed group on top of the dunes seemed to have survived OK.

The walk along the beach was hard work as we were going into the wind but at least we were blown back quickly and with the wind on our backs it felt much warmer and my nose stopped streaming.

We were lucky in Marsden and well protected although the wave buoy off the coast here was said to be recording 10m swells. It was a bit cold on the boat and we had to have the hatches in and air con running. Other parts of the east coast were flooded with beaches and roads washed away by the sea.

This was the result of a low-pressure system northeast of New Zealand was forecast to bring very strong south-easterly winds and heavy swells for the east coast of the North Island. It developed very quickly and was described as a weather bomb which is when a depression drops 1 hectopascal (hPa) an hour for 24 hours at a latitude of 60 degrees. This is also known as 'explosive cyclogenesis'.