Pisa Moorings resident Bevan Flannery is feeling lucky after escaping unscathed from a whirlwind which whipped through an area north of Cromwell yesterday.
He was in his work truck on Gilmore Rd, just north of the Parkburn Quarry, about 11.15am when he saw a piece of timber fly through the air.
He stopped the vehicle and adopted the "brace position" by putting his arms over his head, inside the truck cab.
"I knew what was happening - that it was a tornado - so I just covered myself and crouched forward, because the piece of timber had just missed hitting my truck. I looked up but couldn't see anything out of the windscreen because there was so much dust and things flying around in the air," he said.
"It was blown to smithereens. I saw the shed's roof lift off and the next minute it blew up like a stick of dynamite had been put underneath it," he said.
Following the tornado, Mr Flannery returned to work in Cromwell, from where he had been making a delivery when struck by the powerful gust of wind.
His truck was "very dirty" from being covered in dust, although it was not damaged.
"I'm just so lucky I wasn't injured and the truck wasn't damaged," he said.
The ODT was contacted by another man who witnessed yesterday's whirlwind. Frankton resident Julian Birchall photographed what he described as a tornado "ripping" through the Upper Clutha Valley and across an irrigation pond north of Cromwell, sending water into the air.
Mr Birchall said he was driving his truck on State Highway 6 from Wanaka towards Cromwell when something caught his eye around the Parkburn Quarry.
"I turned my head, just in time to see an entire roof lifted clean off a barn and flipped, landing some 10m from the walls of the building. It was then I saw the tornado travelling roughly parallel to my own course at some speed - I estimate around 70kmh," he said.
Parkburn Quarry staff said their on-site weather station recorded wind gusts of up to 64kmh yesterday.
Little damage was done at the quarry, where airborne dust was the only indication of wind.
Cromwell police did not receive any reports of damage or callouts to wind-related incidents.
