A trampoline blew down the road, a window was blown out and a few trees fell in the tornado.

Civil Defence are advising people to remain indoors as a precaution after a localised tornado swept through the New Plymouth suburb of Strandon on Thursday night just before 7pm.

Civil Defence Emergency Management controller Craig Campbell-Smart confirmed Fire and Emergency New Zealand had received three calls regarding the twister.

He said there were no reports of injuries and damage was restricted to a trampoline across the road, a house window broken, a fence and some trees down and a door blown open.

Supplied/Brendon Mitchell A trampoline blew several houses down Waiwaka Tce, stakes and all.

"The interesting thing for us is there's no MetService warnings in place for Taranaki," he said.

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"It's out of the blue."

SIMON O'CONNOR/STUFF Reports have come in of a tornado in New Plymouth days after a damaging storm. (file photo)

He said the highest wind gust at the nearest recording point was only 40.8 kilometres and hour.

"That's actually very strange that we had one in the conditions that we have.

"It seems like it was very short lived. They tend to be quite narrow usually; it's nowhere near as severe as the one which hit Rāhotu earlier in the week."

Campbell-Smart said while there were no warnings in place, it was recommended people stay indoors as a precaution

Sam Mitchell lives on Waiwaka Tce in Strandon and said she didn't actually see it but heard it.

"It just came out of nowhere," she said.

"The house shaking and a rumbling.

"Our neighbour, her trampoline has ended up in the property behind us."

Mitchell said she couldn't see any damage, "just lots of leaves and things".

"It looks like it's kind of gone through our fence line between two of us. Once it had gone we could see everyone was out having a look at what the noise was."

Neighbour Sandra Whitmore said it was "a bit scary".

"We just heard it and felt the whole place shudder," she said.

"There was a massive 30-second burst of really heavy rain that drowned out the sound of everything...a very silent pause and then we thought, 'a gust of wind, whoa that's a big gust and getting bigger'.

"It was really a roar - I think people explain sometimes like the sound of a train."

Whitmore said they didn't appear to have sustained any damage but it was hard to see in the dark.

"I tried to survey damage and found a trampoline on our deck.

"The trampoline was staked down and it's brought the stakes with it."

She said they weren't immediately sure what to do.

"I'm glad I wasn't in the house alone...Do we get down under something or what?"

New Plymouth's new bakery Smoko on Gill St was right in the path of the tornado, with owner Rob Smith saying the whole building shook.

He was working late preparing for the opening on Monday when the twister hit, shaking the doors, ripping iron from the roof and blowing out two windows.

He said it was "freaky".

"It was like a train was coming through the building," he said. "The walls and the ceiling were moving.

"It must have just been a skinny one because it went straight past the skip bin which was loaded to the top and had timbers on top, and didn't touch that. Across the road it whipped the wheelie bins over.

"I think it must have been a little thin spiral."

A police spokesperson said they received a notification from the council about 6.45pm of reports of a tornado on Strandon's Waiwaka Tce, and there was also a door blown open on Gill St.

About 500 people remained without power in coastal and South Taranaki on Thursday afternoon following Tuesday's storm, with Powerco hoping to reduce the number by nightfall.

The weather also damaged power lines in the Highlands Park area, cutting power from 46 homes.

Powerco network operations manager Phil Marsh said restoration may still take several days.

"The storm caused massive damage to our poles, lines and transformers in Taranaki," he said.

"More than 30 transformers in Taranaki are needing to be replaced after being adversely affected by lightning. The componentry in the transformers has been damaged beyond repair and we are sourcing new transformers from outside the region to replace them."