After days of warm weather parts of the South Island woke to snow today with even coastal areas getting a smattering on the first day of spring.
Residents - and goats - in Fairlight, Southland, woke to their land blanketed in snow this morning. Photo: Supplied / Pete Van Berkel
"We've got a situation with some north-westerlies aloft and southerlies pushing in. We're getting snow levels pretty low, at 200 metres in Canterbury at the moment with possible flurries getting down to 100 [metres]," MetService meteorologist Tam Pletzer said this morning.
RNZ has heard from people seeing snow near sea level in Temuka, Canterbury.
MetService issued snow warnings for the Lewis, Arthurs, Porters, Lindis and Haast passes, as well as for the Crown Range and Milford roads.
Snow on the Lindis Pass this morning Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton
Queenstown Lakes District Council was requiring chains to be fitted on vehicles driving over the Crown Range Road, and for them to be carried on a number of other routes.
Motorists were warned of debris on the roads in the area roads after strong overnight winds. Heavy rain also caused minor rockfalls through the Kawarau Gorge, the council said.
The cold front and its associated southerly change was over Cook Strait mid morning and heading to Welllington.
Snow near Queenstown this morning. Photo: Supplied
The snow and heavy rain near Aoraki/Mt Cook overnight helped firefighters battling to slow a huge scrub fire burning since Sunday, dampening flammable materials in the fire's path.
The Homer Tunnel just before 7am today. Photo: NZTA
The Milford Road was closed from East Gate to West Gate due to snow during the morning.
There was snow and ice on State Highway 79 between Fairlie and Rangitata and theNZTA urged drivers to take extra care.
Meanwhile SH73 from Castle Hill to Arthurs Pass was closed to clear trucks from Castle Hill. It was expected to reopen about 1pm.
NIWA meteorologist Chris Brandolino said overall spring was expected to be warmer than usual for all of Aotearoa.
Rainfall is also expected to be near or below normal in the South Island which could be an issue for the fire season, he said.
Snow in Fairlight, Southland this morning. Photo: Supplied / Pete Van Berkel
Farmers feeding out, checking on lambs
The snow has come at a bad time for South Island farmers who are busy with lambing and calving.
Sheep and beef farmer Julie Dobbs said by 8am two or three inches of snow had fallen on the farm.
Dobbs said it would be a busy day checking on stock and feeding out. Weather over winter had been mild and she hoped the bad weather would clear quickly.
"This is our first snowfall this winter, it's just a little bit worrying when we get it at this time of the year, the sheep are about to have their lambs and the dairy farms are in calving and of course the animals need good grass nutrition at this time of year."
While the snow hadn't arrived at Miles Anderson's sheep and beef farm in nearby Southburn, the wind and rain had been bitterly cold.
Anderson said there had been a good amount of warning that the bad weather was on its way which meant farmers had time to shift stock to sheltered paddocks.
"Took the opportunity yesterday to move our lambing ewes to the more sheltered paddocks that were available on the farm in preparation for the cold weather that was coming through and I'm guessing that a lot of other farmers would have done the same."
Anderson said he would be shepherding the sheep all day and making sure newborn lambs were being given the best chance of survival.
"What we do here is we tend to put woollen sheep covers that we use to put on newborn lambs and they seem to give that little bit of extra warmth and protection."