The worst storm I have experienced was the weather bomb that hit Auckland a few years back, howling wind, arching powerlines and raging surf in Takapuna. Worse then some of the cyclones I’ve been in.
Another was in 1989. The night before we were due back into Sydney from a 15 day cruise the weather turned, within 1/2 hour of the sea “coming up” there was a queue of people spanning at least 3 decks from the medical centre lining up for sea sick tablets and I had to dodge spray when out on deck taking photos early on. The storm did not affect us being good sea travellers although keeping ones footing while trying to dance in the lounge was interesting.
In 1975 my brother on the old Fairsky (which had no stabilizers) sailed out of Lautoka straight into a cyclone. (It was safer to be at sea then in Lautoka where the cyclone was headed) He and his mates went though an internal staircase to an area by the funnel, (the only outside space open) and they still got covered in spray. He said the sea was green with huge swells and the experience was awesome with the ship going down in hugh troughs and coming up again.

Storms – which one! Wahine Storm was the worst I can recall, was in the Hutt then. Helped look for bodies around Eastbourne way, the communities just went out and looked. I was only a kid, but found a dead woman in the rocks. Cyclone Bola was frightening here even, heavy rain and high wind on the Kapiti Coast. Went up to Gisborne and saw the collapsed rail bridge, ditto the Wairoa road bridge. Helluva mess up there. Have pix of that. In recent times the worst storm was an major orographic stalling in 2003, (after a severe drought), when a strong moist NW airstream covered northern and central New Zealand bringing rain to most of the North Island and northern South Island. Between about 7.00pm and 9.30pm, narrow bands of very heavy rain formed a weather bomb over top of and to the west of Paekakariki. The Met Service issued severe weather bulletins earlier on Friday 3 October, outlining heavy rain and strong winds that could affect our Region. However, DUH, all warnings were lifted that evening. This ‘extreme’ event, saw an estimated 75mm of rainfall in Paekakariki in three hours. The Tararua ranges received about 345mm of rain over a 24-hour period, while the total rainfall in Paekakariki fell well in excess of 100mm over the same period. The resultant flooding and destruction was collosal and isolated us for 3 days, no road, rail, sea or air access, the only way out was by foot via the washed out railway line for 4 km’s to north of McKays. Some houses were under water up to their windowsills. The intensity of the rainfall was truly staggering, the hills ran as literal waterfalls. Just as the torrential downpour rain eased off, a plane went into the sea off Paraparaumu. Despite being 10km’s away, we heard the massive explosion from Paekakariki while rescuing trapped people. It was one hell of a night. Following that we had two more NW stallings 2003/04. Torrential rain is common here during a summer/autumn NW, but ever since that I cringe when it hammers down and there isn’t a lot of wind. 2002-2004 were bad years weather wise for Paekakariki. Another scary one was an intense an SE, which dropped funnels and took roofs off here. A tornado coming down my driveway wasn’t a good feeling either, I just ran like hell to get away from it! LOL Paekakariki is the home of weather events!