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A curtain of rain falls across Wellington Harbour - looking to Lambton Harbour from Oriental Bay - Source: Courtesy of Soile Mottisenkangas -
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The clean up has begun in the capital after a freak storm swept across the region causing widespread damage and chaos on Friday afternoon.
Rooves were blown off buildings, trees uprooted and boats upturned.
"It's the worst storm I have see, it came up really fast, went from 15 knots in the north to more than 50 knots from the south just like that," says boatie Matt Wood.
In a matter of minutes the storm left a trail of wreckage and chaos.
At Samuel Marsden Collegiate the wind lifted a massive section of roof from the auditorium and blew it 60 metres over a building before it landed on the main drive in front of the school.
"We were very lucky, had it come through half an hour earlier it would have been potentially tragic because it landed right in the middle of an area where people move all the time," headmistress Jenny Williams says.
Inside the classroom, is a danger zone with parts of the roof caved in.
Around the region, gusts of up to 130 kilometres an hour uprooted trees, pushed power poles to the ground and battered boats on land and sea.
The southern storm also left organisers of the national triathlon series in Wellington struggling as they raced to get the event up and running.
"Fifteen port-a-loos everywhere, one blew 50 metres and the finish line ended up in the ocean...we had to retrieve that so a big effort this morning to get the transition area back into shape," Triathlon New Zealand corporate director Carl Jackson said.
Fortunately the capital turned on the sunshine to get things back into shape.
