Photo: Supplied / Craig Adams
A West Coast business owner had a lucky escape after watching a waterspout tear towards her luxury lodge, only for it to change course and clip the corner of the house instead.
Awatuna Sunset Lodge co-owner Elizabeth Meaclem was with her 17-year-old grandnephew when he pointed out a strange-looking cloud on Sunday.
"He said 'there's a really weird cloud on the water'. I said 'that's no cloud, that's a waterspout', and then just within 40 seconds, it was heading straight to our place," Meaclem said.
A few minutes earlier, she said they noticed the heaviest raindrops she had ever seen, working out that it was likely the sea spray off the funnel.
It only shifted course once it made landfall.
"We were lucky it changed [trajectory] at the sand dunes and just got the corner of the house because it was coming straight for the back of the house, [to] which it would have done amazing damage," she said.
It did damage some of their property.
"Sheds ripped apart, lost lots of fruit off my fruit trees and grape vines, and quite a few trees uprooted.
"But the back of the house, it hit the corner where we've got the guest patio and outdoor furniture, basically picked it all up and threw it on the grass, which is lucky that it didn't smash it into windows."
Meaclem told Morning Report no damage was caused to any of the neighbouring properties.
The waterspout had "rapid energy" but soon disapated after hitting the sand dunes.
She had owned the property for four years and never seen anything like it before.
But she had heard from locals that something similar had happened about 10 years ago.
MetService forecaster Tuporo Marsters said the waterspout was part of active shower clouds that popped up over the sea ahead of a front moving up the West Coast.
"A little bit of a convergence and upward motion made those clouds more convective so that was enough to get some down draughts and get a tail into a little bit of a spin similar to what you get with a tornado," Marsters said.
