People are still not convinced that a loud 'bang” which woke many Tauranga people in the early hours of Sunday morning was thunder.
At about 3am, many residents were jolted awake after hearing a booming noise, some people said it even shook their house.
Police and MetService say it was likely just thunder, but residents aren't so sure.
One person believed it could have been a meteor, while another thought it was an earthquake.
A member of the Tauranga Weather Facebook group said her pets had been "going weird" in the moments before the noise was heard.
Others, however, are sure it was just the weather.
"It was definitely thunder - heard it. It woke me up. It was long and so loud," says Maxine Paterson.
Kaysi Fredericks says she was woken from a deep sleep by "what I thought was a large clap [of] thunder hitting above the roof of the house".
"It was enough to shake the house.”
MetService says there was a thunderstorm over Tauranga about 3am and that was the likely cause.
A few locals contacted police to report the sound, a spokeswoman confirmed.
"Apparently we did get a couple of calls about a loud bang, but it's believed to have been weather-related."
The Fire Service, on the other hand, received no calls about it.
-Additional reporting from Stuff.co.nz
5 comments
How very Tauranga...
Posted on 29-05-2017 07:58 | By WSTAKL
Contacting the Police because of a bit of thunder!. Dear oh dear....
The big bang theory
Posted on 29-05-2017 08:49 | By penguin
I tend to agree with Metservice about the thunder. Singapore has some massive thunderstorms and thunder that sounds akin to heavy artillery gunfire, much the same as that we heard in Tauranga on Sunday. I don't think it is fair to berate those who rang the Police - they were very likely genuinely concerned.
It was thunder
Posted on 29-05-2017 12:00 | By seaweed1965
It was thunder - and right overhead. Was awake at the time - big flash of lightning followed almost immediately by a MASSIVE thunder peel. Only one though - there weren't any more flashes or thunder after it. Then came a hosing down of torrential rain!
hang on a minute
Posted on 29-05-2017 15:15 | By old trucker
TCC should know the answer, as they have all the brains and know whats going on,(hangon) you would need a brain for that, agree with Byseaweed, gosh people always thinking awful things, my thoughts only Sunlive,Thankyou, 10-4.
Anything possible
Posted on 29-05-2017 19:24 | By About that
Heard the same noise early in the morning. Around 17 years ago, I heard the very same sound during the day and it was an exploding Meteor which was visible clearly over the sky in Wanganui where I lived at the time. Was all over the media at the time it happened. Given it was cloudy, who knows, but the sound was so similar but wasn't enough to ring the Rozzers (police).
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