The storm brought strong winds and high waves especially around the Wellington Region, and further afield chilling cold temperatures and heavy snow to the South Island.

-Associate Professor James Renwick at the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at Victoria University has researched how polar conditions affect our weather.

"To get an event like this, which is pretty extreme, we need the westerly wind that normally blows across New Zealand and the southern oceans to slow down and to buckle into a series of big meanders, north-south waves around the hemisphere."

Wind gusts uprooted trees, ripped roofs off houses, smashed windows and flung trampolines into powerlines in Wellington, Kāpiti Coast and Wairarapa, closing roads and schools across the lower North Island.

[14] In Lower Hutt the local council estimated a cost of $100,000 NZD to remove debris washed up on the Petone foreshore when parts of the wall were smashed by the storm surge.

Hawke's Bay Civil Defence manager Trevor Mitchell said the region had got off "pretty lightly" compared to other parts of the country, though some areas suffered localised surface flooding.

[18] The Insurance Council of New Zealand says the storm could be the biggest weather event, insurance-wise, in the lower North Island since the 2004 Manawatū River floods.