Cold Snap For late May

[Gary Roberts]

sorry to interrupt your southern discussion, but as its part of the cold weather at the moment.... damn, theres a nice line of thunderstorm currently raging over northern northland!

Pictures? Video?

[Lawrence]

sorry to interrupt your southern discussion, but as its part of the cold weather at the moment.... damn, theres a nice line of thunderstorm currently raging over northern northland!

Well I hope you get more out of this system than Canty did,but I did tell ya!

what ever the case it looks very good for some action to the far North of the North Island, remember that your haven’t had many good displays this season from events coming across from the north west, so my thinking is that this system might bowl something up for you from the south west. Not sure about snow to low levels yet, but what ever happens I think the skiers among us will be very happy when this system comes through.

Or

Changed my mind, models have lifted the snow level quiet abit, more 400-500m atm

Yep ,noticed that too.Some models are starting to show a low forming, but at this stage it might be too far south to cause any low level event.I'm just wondering how much further the models might degrade. Looking good for some action in the North Island still ,don't you think?

Sorry couldn't resist

[southernthrash]

The high and complex terrain of the central South Island could easily result in some areas being either sheltered from or exposed to the bands of cold moisture, hence the varying snow levels.

I'd say it's more due to the fact that there was almost no snow outside of Southland and not a lot of it even there. With SI temps being quite mild at the moment, what snow did fall won't last long. Blue sky over the central Mackenzie now.

Plenty of snow through the southern lakes, this sign is at 1100m, and had only a couple of cm of snow around it prior to this system, it was taken this morning, snow has continued to fall around Queenstown and Wanaka all day.

Picture grabbed from snow.co.nz

The Mt Cook village webcam seems to suggest a pretty decent snow fall on the central part of the main divide, with snow down to around 800m last I looked, too dark now. Snow not nearly as low around Tekapo, yet snow to the east (mt Hutt recieved a decent amount). I think that basically what happened was, as usual, the central McKenzie illustrated some wonderful orographic effects, and missed all the fun as a result.

I can also tell you, temps through Otago and Southland are not mild for the time of year. Talking to DoC staff at Mt Cook last weekend, they mentioned how early Lake Tasman froze over this year...

This snow will last (at least around the southern lakes) the magical 540 line is parked way over the south island for the next wee while, and even the last snowfall at coronet peak (10-15 cm) lasted for two weeks over most of the mountain, almost unheard of for the time of year.

There is more to the South Island and it's weather (more to the McKenzie even) than Omarama and Tekapo. Having said that, the refrigeration plant at the tekapo ice rink hasn't had to be run as hard this year... must be pretty mild

[Gary Roberts]

Sorry couldn't resist

Your trumpet is deafening!

[tich]

3C at 6pm with recent precip in Wanaka and Queenstown. - white stuff must be continuing on hills down there.

[Storm Struck]

Hey look it's actually finally starting to rain, none of this drizzly pointless stuff although only spotting here and there.
Not sure if it is in chch because the rain radar shows precipitation more out this way as of 8pm.
Cheers
Jason.

[Lawrence]

Latest models show that there could be a slight possibility that as a front moves up the east coast of the South Island any precipitation might fall as snow over the higher Parts of Banks Peninsular during Sunday afternoon / Monday morning, but will be light.

[David]

Looks like there could be some decent rainfalls on the way:

SEVERE WEATHER WATCH FOR AUCKLAND, COROMANDEL PENINSULA AND WESTERN
BAY OF PLENTY
ISSUED BY METSERVICE AT 1026hrs 25-May-2008

HEAVY RAIN POSSIBLE FOR AUCKLAND AND COROMANDEL PENINSULA, ALSO
WESTERN BAY OF PLENTY

A slow moving trough looks likely to bring some heavy falls to
Auckland and Coromandel Peninsula, and possibly western Bay of Plenty
from Sunday night through into early Tuesday.

The trough should move southwards over Northland during Sunday, and
become more active. It looks set to stall over the Auckland/
Coromandel/western Bay of Plenty area through Monday, before moving
off to the north again on Tuesday.

It is uncertain at this stage whether rainfall amounts will reach
warning criteria. People in these areas should remain up to date with
latest forecasts, and look out for any upgrade of this watch to a
full warning.

This Watch will be reviewed by 9pm Sunday 25th May
Forecast prepared by: Mark Pascoe

[spwill]

Web cams this morn show good snow coverage on the Mnts around Wanaka /Qtwn, I think we have to go back about 8 years for such a good early snow fall.

[Ryan Thomas]

Web cams this morn show good snow coverage on the Mnts around Wanaka /Qtwn, I think we have to go back about 8 years for such a good early snow fall.

GLOBAL WARMING.

Just kidding.

How much was it? over 30cm? Wonder what the most those areas have had in a single fall / in 24hrs

[southernthrash]

Coronet peak recieved 40cm in 24 hours, for total snowfall of 50cm, which fell on the remnants of the last snowfall. Plenty of people have been getting up to get some early turns in.