December 6th, 2012 New Zealand, Auckland tornado

[Jason Harris]

If confirmed, allegedly the deadliest tornado in 60 years, though seems to have been small and not intense by EF-Scale standards or the visuals so far.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-terrifying-power-of-New-Zealand-tornado.html

However, this mention of concrete falling sounds notable: "Fire services communications manager Peter Stevenson said two people had been killed when a slab of concrete fell onto a truck"--

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10852307

 

[Steve Burrows]

Metservice ended up calling this event a "Wind Storm" basically due to the fact no visual tornado was sighted. Personally im not convinced a tornado didnt happen as a rain wrapped tornado may not have been sighted.

This tragic event has been widely reported as a tornado. On Friday 7 December, as I wrote this blog, there certainly was an absence of evidence of a tornado. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Over the last few days it has become increasingly clear — from inspecting aerial views of the damage swath, and from correspondence from people in the area at the time — that this was much more likely to have been a localised wind storm known as a microburst

http://blog.metservice.com/2012/12/hobsonville-tornado-wind-storm-thursday-6-december-2012/