Wild weather sweeps east coast

The temperature plummeted, lightning forked and hail pounded down as a "southerly buster" roared up the east coast on Friday.

The biggest danger came from high winds.

A 15-year-old Rarangi boy broke his ankle when he was hit by a falling branch from a willow tree and a 40-year-old man was taken by ambulance to Wairau Hospital with moderate head injuries after his truck was blown off the road on State Highway 1 at Ward.

Power in some areas was cut for a short time and traffic around Kaikoura slowed as visibility diminished in heavy rain and hail.

Metservice meteorologist Paula Acethorp described the storm as a "southerly buster", which had been given "a bit more oomph" because of the warm air in front of it.

The storm had raced up the coast, hitting Kaikoura first with winds gusting up to 115 kilometres an hour at 3pm, up from 18kmh half an hour earlier.

Temperatures in Kaikoura fell from 14.7 degrees Celcius at 1.30pm to 6.9C by 2pm, Mrs Acethorp said.

More than 17mm of rain also fell in less than two hours, and heavy hail blew sideways into windows.

Further north, Cape Campbell had a wind speed of 78kmph, although the Metservice does not have a continuous wind reading, so gusts could have been higher, she said.

At Woodbourne, wind gusts reached 67kmh about 4.30pm, while the temperature fell sharply from 21C to 14C in half an hour.

- The Marlborough Express

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