Massive, dark twister spins through New Zealand countryside

A scary twister tore through Canterbury this afternoon, with a couple capturing the “once-in-a-lifetime experience”.

A couple captured a crazy tornado on video as they drove through country New Zealand.

The massive twister rolled through Canterbury this afternoon.

Footage was taken by local resident Alesha Plew as she and her husband Richard were driving along State Highway 1, north of Ashburton.

A tornado has rolled through Canterbury this afternoon - https://t.co/0VpYRN7J7t

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“My husband looked up and just said … what is that? It was just a massive tornado, a big brown twister.”

The couple came within metres of the tornado as debris flew about the road, but their car wasn’t damaged.

Alesha Plew and her husband captured the moment the tornado tore through New Zealand. Picture: Alesha Plew

The couple live in Canterbury but had never seen anything like it. Picture: Alesha Plew

Mrs Plew said they’d driven through a severe hailstorm in Ashburton, before the skies cleared and then the twister appeared in a paddock beside them.

“We kind of kept driving straight past it — it was a couple of fields away from us at the time,” she said.

“It ended up coming about 10m from the car, and there was debris and dirt flying around.”

While other motorists stopped to witness the spectacle, she and her husband kept driving.

“While it looked dangerous, it didn’t feel that way — it didn’t feel like it was sucking us in, anyway.”

For Mr Plew, who hadn’t seen a tornado before, the event was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“It was quite amazing … just to be looking up at it from so close … it was incredible.”

This afternoon, hailstones the size of marbles and whirling winds pelted properties in Mid and South Canterbury and a thunderstorm lashed the region.

MetService meteorologist Tui McInnes said “substantial” hail between 20 and 30mm started to pour down over Ashburton about 3pm Sunday.

MetService earlier issued a severe thunderstorm warning and said the storms were expected to move northwards through Mid Canterbury during the afternoon and evening.

The twister was dark and scary when moved across the blue sky. Picture: Alesha Plew

The area has also been hit with hailstorms. Picture: Alesha Plew

“These thunderstorms are expected to be accompanied by large hail, damaging wind gusts and possible tornadoes,” MetService warned.

There was a moderate risk the storms could produce localised damaging tornadoes and strong winds gusting more than 120km/h.

Mr McInnes said small tornadoes, or vortexes, were possible of the updraft caused by the thunderstorm.

A “broad set of ingredients”, including cold air high in the atmosphere, coupled with warm surface heating and northeast sea breezes bringing high moisture levels, combined to create the perfect conditions for the storm.

“Thunderstorms usually don’t last more than an hour before collapsing so it’s passed its peak and moving offshore but they can trigger others further up the line.”

He anticipated further storms would continue in the surrounding areas overnight.

Netherby resident Matt Banks said hailstones “about the size of a ten cent piece” pounded his property and thunder and lightning could be heard in the distance on Sunday afternoon.

This article originally appeared on NZ Herald and was reproduced with permission.