South Island Snowstorm - June 18-19

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NZstorm
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South Island Snowstorm - June 18-19

Unread post by NZstorm »

Potential there for heavy inland snow from Canterbury to Southland Thursday/Thursday night. Looks like an over running scenario. Wanaka could be a good spot to be.

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Re: General June Weather

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More a South Canterbury south event though,looks like the low its going to move SE over the bottom of the South Island so northern parts Canterbury will be influenced more by N-NW wind flow
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Re: General June Weather

Unread post by Nev »

NZstorm wrote:Potential there for heavy inland snow from Canterbury to Southland Thursday/Thursday night. Looks like an over running scenario. Wanaka could be a good spot to be.
I see MetService's Severe Weather Watch this morn also includes snow to low levels from Thursday arvo to Friday morn, with significant amounts possible above 100m about Southland, Otago and SE Fiordland, 200m about south Canterbury, and 400m about north Canterbury.
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Re: General June Weather

Unread post by SnwAddct »

Some heavy snow on the way that's for sure..
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Re: General June Weather

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Just heard from a woman on the radio that it is forecast to snow to sea level in Christchurch on the weekend - where on earth is she getting this information from??
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Re: General June Weather

Unread post by Nev »

A rather overzealous Stuff reporter…

'Snow forecast for Christchurch on Sunday' - The Press

(The computer-generated snow-symbol yesterday morning was only short-lived)
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Re: General June Weather

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So she latches onto an article that was from yesterday and is already out of date and incorrect, oh how frustrating certain members of the media are in search of ratings :)
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Re: General June Weather

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Interesting that Tony at Blueskies is only going for snow down to 400m for Otago and Southland on Thursday whereas Metservice have put out a warning stating that they expect snowfall amounts to reach warning levels right down to 100m. Clearly the Metservice are putting there faith in some different kind of models then the rest of us or are just interpreting the data differently…
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Re: General June Weather

Unread post by Tornado Tim »

Nev wrote:A rather overzealous Stuff reporter…

'Snow forecast for Christchurch on Sunday' - The Press

(The computer-generated snow-symbol yesterday morning was only short-lived)
Those comments in that article [-X.
Most people under-estimate how complex our country is to Forecast, and it quite clearly denoted that its a computer generated forecast, not one from a forecast team.
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Re: General June Weather

Unread post by Nev »

There was a time when a journalist's job was to investigate, not just sit behind a desk and regurgitate what anyone can read on a website. A sad sign of the times… :(


Bradley, at this stage MS have only issued a 'Watch'…
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Re: General June Weather

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Im thinking that Mt Hutt could get a good going over from this, 30-40cm at the carpark... maybe. Either or... looks to be a ChCh south event to me with snow to 300m in the south... tekapo could get 20cm too! It actually has a few warm advection elements to it this!
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Re: General June Weather

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Bradley wrote:Interesting that Tony at Blueskies is only going for snow down to 400m for Otago and Southland on Thursday whereas Metservice have put out a warning stating that they expect snowfall amounts to reach warning levels right down to 100m. Clearly the Metservice are putting there faith in some different kind of models then the rest of us or are just interpreting the data differently…
Or maybe I was being a bit conservative. There is quite a lot of disagreement between the models as to how cold the air will be and to what extent the colder bits will extend onto the South Island. Perhaps the level forecast for Southland and Otago should be lower than 400m, we'll see what the early 0Z model runs say and update accordingly. For Canterbury its a tough one, as we really are in the boundary zone of how far north the cold will push.

This has the feel of a situation the models will take in several different directions before it all unfolds.
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Re: General June Weather

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In your opinion Tony is this situation similar to June 2006 in that the models couldn't get a grip on things leading up to the event? Here is the data from that event, certainly seems that Otago and Southland are in a similar situation to what Canterbury was on that occasion?
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Re: General June Weather

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Bradley wrote:In your opinion Tony is this situation similar to June 2006 in that the models couldn't get a grip on things leading up to the event? Here is the data from that event, certainly seems that Otago and Southland are in a similar situation to what Canterbury was on that occasion?
I dont really recall sorry. 30 years of looking at future weather maps every day has left me with little recall of past events! But as a general rule, the worst snow events are often the ones which are the most marginal (for obvious reasons really, if you think about it).
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Re: General June Weather

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Haha, yes completely understandable! From my own memory I seem to recall the Metservice saying that South Canterbury would get the worst of it in that June 2006 snowstorm and all the road clearing equipment went down there in preparation for it but we all know in the end that mid Canterbury got hit the worst, perhaps this event will shape up the same and somewhere like South Canterbury will get an unexpected dump...
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Re: General June Weather

Unread post by snowchaser01 »

Im certainly thinking warm advection... metservice have "Rain turning to snow, northeast developing" for queenstown. Not often you see that!
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Re: General June Weather

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I see CWU are well behind the game on this :-k Edit oh ok they did have a watch out but still give sun to Rangiora for Thur,Fri.
I have a feeling about this one :lol: it wouldnt take to much of a shift north for things to become a game changer but then again it could move south and fizz but one things for sure there is some moisture in that coming system.
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Possible low level snow 18th-19th June

Unread post by snowchaser01 »

Thought a new topic is probably called for with models slowly starting to become consistent for Thursday, Friday. Looks to me that as the low moves east across the south island, the cold air moves up, undercutting that low. Could be interesting for places inland above 300-400m, from about Christchurch south.

Thoughts everyone?
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Re: Possible low-level snow for S.I. - June 18-19

Unread post by Nev »

So is CWU in need of some more free advice? lol :D

Seems people have been offering their thoughts about this event since at least early this morning, I thought it would make sense to move today's relevant posts to this thread.
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Re: Possible low-level snow for S.I. - June 18-19

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It will be very interesting to see this unfold.
Last edited by Cook on Tue 16/06/2015 21:14, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Possible low-level snow for S.I. - June 18-19

Unread post by TonyT »

The 0Z EC run has gone very bullish for snow in Canterbury, suggesting falls to sea level as far north as North Canty. Precip totals are 25-30mm total (a lot of that before the really cold air arrives) the temps below 4deg from about 6pm Thursday with Christchurch showing 10mm Thursday evening and another 5mm early Friday morning. So, 10-15cm is not unrealistic above say 200m, and lesser amounts lower down. Falls in South Canterbury will be heavier still. The Friday morning one is interesting, as there is substantial and rapid warm advection in the lowest layers at that time. It will be interesting to see what the 12Z run brings overnight.
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Re: Possible low-level snow for S.I. - June 18-19

Unread post by Cook »

Sorry for the silly question, Tony but where can you see the EC precip?
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Re: Possible low-level snow for S.I. - June 18-19

Unread post by TonyT »

Try http://www.yr.no as a good free to the public source, there may be others.
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Re: Possible low-level snow for S.I. - June 18-19

Unread post by Cook »

Cheers. ;)
Looks like it is going to be a truly spectacular event for some! Looks like the likes of Treble Cone could get more than 1 metre of snow. I wonder what will happen lower down, this forecast is for 1260m above sea level.
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Re: Possible low-level snow for S.I. - June 18-19

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Yet yr no is not going for any rain at all for Christchurch next Thursday and Friday but everywhere else is going for around 50mm?
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