About 4500 homes across Auckland in New Zealand are without power, with lines company Vector telling Stuff crews were working hard to reconnect homes and businesses.
Trees are down and the city's roads are strewn with debris. Motorists are urged to drive with care as the region gets to grips with widespread damage from extreme overnight gales.
Henderson, Glen Eden, Titirangi, Helensville and further north to Kaukapakapa are all experiencing outages.
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But meteorologists are confident the worst has passed.
MetService meteorologist Tui McInnes said by 8am (local time) there were gusts of up to 87km/h on the Harbour Bridge. By midday, wind speeds had eased to 55-60km/h.
"For every hour, you can knock off roughly 5-10km/h from the wind speed. It should get a little lighter in the late afternoon," McInnes said.
However, a strong wind watch remains in place for the country's largest city until 2pm.
A Vector spokeswoman said members of the public should avoid Clemos Lane and Jack Hinton Drive in Albany as the winds had brought down two high voltage power lines and the road was closed for safety.
The outages map on Vector's website revealed heavier-hit regions, including Auckland City and West Auckland.
Counties Power released an image confirming regions in the southwest suffering from power outages. A statement confirmed there will be long resolution times as crews work as safely as they can in the high winds.
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High winds are affecting the Auckland Harbour Bridge, with delays expected for inbound traffic on State Highway 1, Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency said in a statement.
Wind speeds were gusting around 80km/h at 6.30am but MetService has indicated they could get as high as 110km/h throughout the morning, NZTA said.
Stacked shipping containers had toppled in the wild weather at the Ports of Auckland storage facility where a worker died during a freak tornado in June.
The containers appeared to be stacked eight high, a reporter at the scene said.
A woman in Mt Roskill was woken at 3am by her neighbour with news a large tree had toppled onto her car, destroying it.
Serra Posoni, who has lived on Glass Rd for almost 36 years, said the neighbour had been asking Kāinga Ora to have the tree removed, fearing an event like this morning's would take place.
"It's sad that he [the neighbour] has been trying to get rid of it for so long, but nothing's been done since," Posoni said.
"Every time there was a storm, he's been scared it would fall over – it's been leaning for a while now. They've trimmed it a little, but it's not enough."
The seven-seater Ford Territory contained numerous items belonging to Pesoni's family. She's accepted she probably won't make it into work this morning.
"We're a pretty sporty family – we had all the kids' sports equipment, tents and chairs. It's a family car, so it's never empty."
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Auckland Transport said response crews were attending multiple incidents across the city, including fallen trees and power outages that are affecting traffic signals.
A Fire and Emergency New Zealand spokeswoman said between 3am and 8am fire crews had been called to 128 weather-related incidents.
Fortunately, houses in Papatoetoe which were damaged by a tornado over a month ago have managed to ride out the high winds without any further damage.
Many of the homes with damaged roofs now have large plastic membranes covering them. And those still using tarps to cover holes have managed to escape the storm with their tarps intact.
But Papatoetoe residents like Evan Reece weren't without concern.
He said the storm kept him up part of the night as last time high winds hit he lost part of his roof.
Out on the water, a double-masted yacht that often sits in St Heliers Bay was blown dangerously close to rocks near Achilles Point.
By noon, a Coastguard NZ spokeswoman said the two people who live on board had been checked on by police and were doing fine.
The pair were waiting for the tide to lift their boat off the rocks and take them into deeper waters, she said.
A number of Waikato homes had also been affected by outages, with west Waikato and the Coromandel the two areas most affected.
A weather trough crossed over the upper North Island overnight, and gale southwesterlies have followed in its wake, bringing wild, windy weather to parts of the North Island on Tuesday morning.
According to Crown research institute Niwa, "strong, potentially damaging wind gusts" will hit parts of the Auckland and Northland regions, while MetService said southwest winds may approach severe gale force in exposed places, especially west of Auckland.
The strong wind watch in place until 2pm also covers Northland, Great Barrier Island and the Coromandel Peninsula, north of Thames and Tairua.
A further strong wind watch will be in place for Wellington and the Kaikōura Coast from 3pm to 10pm on Tuesday.
Gale southerlies are expected to develop about eastern areas from Canterbury to Gisborne, with strong winds expected in Wellington and the Kaikōura Coast on Tuesday afternoon.
A cold, south to southwesterly flow spreading across New Zealand on Tuesday will bring possibly heavy showers, and small hail to some areas. MetService warns that wind gusts could reach up to 110km/h in isolated areas.
There is a low risk of thunderstorms for western coasts, from Waitomo northwards to Northland, on Tuesday morning.
The wet windy area is forecasted to ease from the South Island throughout the day after rain battered the region overnight.
Road snowfall warnings still remained in place for some Alpine passes including Arthur's Pass, Lewis Pass and Lindis Pass, MetService meteorologist Alwyn Bakker said.
A brief period of fine weather was expected on Wednesday before showers would return on Thursday, he said.
