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Snow has been settling in areas of the northern Southland and in the hills around Queenstown. It has also fallen in parts of Central Otago like Ranfurly, Wedderburn, and St Bathans.
Stu Duncan, a councilman for the central Otago district, who grows in Wedderburn, said the cold snap was a surprise.
Yesterday I had planned to make hay, but over 30 degrees C it was too hot.
His plans to make hay stopped again this morning after it started to snow.
At 10.30 a.m. M., The temperature was 4.7 degrees Celsius and the northern Rough Ridge range was white, he said.
“They forecast 3mm of rain, but I wasn’t expecting snow.”
At St Bathans’ historic Vulcan Hotel, manager Wanda Grant said snow was on par with what the small settlement could expect in winter, but this fall was short-lived today, with a return to more normal conditions as noon.
“The sun is shining now and it’s melting pretty fast.”
A Garston resident told RNZ there was “a lot of snow” and said it was settling in the area.
She said snow at this time of year was not unusual, but today’s fall was unusually strong.
The snow that fell in Kingston did not settle.
One resident said the snow started falling around 6.30am before it began to subside around 9am, while another said the snow caused the temperature to plummet and was accompanied by high winds.
In Queenstown, the temperature this morning was about 5 ° C; the snow fell to low levels in the Remarkables, but did not settle on the ground.
MetService had predicted snow at around 500m, as a series of fronts moved.
MetService meteorologist Angus Hines said snow had fallen as much as 200 meters in Fiordland, which was “pretty low” for this time of year.
A Fiordland resident had contacted staff to inform them that there was 10 to 15 cm of snow at 900 m.
A “slight dust formation” could be expected tonight in areas higher than 600 meters and more.
While MetService had not detected the area temperatures on its sensors, it was entirely possible that the numbers had been negative, Hines said.
Te Anau had 26mm of rain overnight and a low of three degrees around 6am today.
There had been no more rain since around 9 am and the day was expected to clear; however, there was more humid weather tonight.
Tuatapere had a “pretty decent dose” of rain overnight with 34mm recorded.
The rains had subsided this morning and the day was expected to clear, followed by more rain tonight.
Lumsden recorded a low of 1.4 degrees overnight.
Photos posted on the Tuatapere Hump Ridge Track social media page showed the Okaka Lodge covered in thick snow.
The post indicated that temperatures had dropped to -1.8 degrees at 5.30am today.
In Central Otago, the front has brought powdered snow to the Old Man, Dunstan, St Bathans and Hawkdun ranges.
This morning the temperature was 7 ° C in Alexandra, in stark contrast to yesterday’s high of 25 ° C.
MetService says the unstable weather would continue into the weekend, with more rain and possibly some hurricane-force winds heading south on Saturday, but conditions would improve and the start of next week would see a return to more stable summer weather.
