Kathryn Green was preparing for Friday drinks with a friend at her Mahora home in Hastings this afternoon, when she got a message from another friend telling her to look outside.
That's when she noticed dark clouds looming overhead and the sound of booming thunder.
“My friend messaged me, she was like ‘go outside and look at the sky’ and the thunder actually sounded like it was going from one side of the sky to the other, it was a rolling noise that lasted for ages.
“The thunder would rumble, then the next minutes it was lightning – then it started raining. But it was over in about 20 minutes.
“It was quite creepy," Green said.
"I always get the camera out everytime there's a lightning strike so I can get that perfect shot - but I didn't realise it would be this perfect, given the lightning strike I was filming hit a tree!"
Green got in touch with another local, Jesse Steffert, and the two figured out they were filming the same lightning strike around the same time.
"My kitchen window lit up like fireworks, I went to check everything was OK and saw the tree get smoked... then it caught fire," Steffert said.
"It was sunny before all that, it's sunny now, it's like it didn't even happen," Green said.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand confirmed to 1News a tree caught on fire in Parkvale in Hastings this afternoon around 2.48pm and one fire truck attended the scene.
It comes as MetService says there is a moderate risk of thunderstorms across many parts of the upper North Island today as a front moves eastwards across New Zealand.
"Over the North Island, there is a moderate risk of thunderstorms this morning and afternoon for Northland, Auckland, parts of Waikato, western Waitomo and Taranaki, and this afternoon and evening about the central North Island from inland Waikato, Bay of Plenty and inland Gisborne, down to Hawke's Bay and northern Tararua District," it wrote.
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