Snow and lambing ‚Äì a deadly combination

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Snow and lambing ‚Äì a deadly combination

14/09/2010 9:00pm

> From the WeatherWatch archives

Snow predicted to fall this Friday night and Saturday in the deep south couldn’t come at a worse time – right in the middle of lambing.

WeatherWatch.co.nz has all week been predicting the risk of snow for Southland and Otago, especially this Saturday, as, for the first time in months, a southerly off the Antarctic ice shelf heads our way.

While snow itself isn’t usually deadly to animals the damp mixed with bitterly cold wind chills is.

It’s not uncommon to see wind chills between -10 and -20 across farms in Southland and Otago during an Antarctic outbreak.

The good news is that while conditions will be very cold during Saturday the wind flow should tilt more south westerly on Sunday and begin to warm up a little. Snow will hopefully melt fairly quickly across any farms.

There is a risk snow could fall as low as sea level.

Winds from the west and south west look to be common across the lower South island over the coming week.

Homepage image: Stacey Bell

Comments

Before you add a new comment, take note this story was published on 14 Sep 2010.

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Ken Ring on 18/09/2010 3:44pm

http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/4142634/Storm-brings-snow-to-city
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10674341&ref=rss
Snow has come to low levels in the South Island and even to sealevel. It was always going be wise to prepare for September snow to sealevels in the South Island, for the North Island to also be affected, and to prepare for lambing casualties as wintry weather returned following a mild August. The Christchurch earthquake has been part of the extreme weather pattern which has not been confined to NZ (in this time of lunar anomaly and leadup to equinox) as the USA has had much rain, NSW has had extreme weather damage, and we have seen the formation of Hurricane Igor and a bunch of smaller cyclones north of the equator is still ongoing. It will be Ireland’s turn next week.

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Ken Ring on 15/09/2010 5:22am

Just a reminder that I predicted this several months ago. It is also in the 2010 almanac which was put together 2 years ago. (p351 “21 Sept: snow, rain and sleet in Canterbury and N Cant, lambing and ewe stocks in the Mackenzie region may be affected..”)

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Gary on 17/09/2010 3:59am

Ok I’ll break down that “forecast” for you Ken. First, you said “may” not “would” and you didn’t give a date. Any September there MAY be lamb deaths, therefore your statement is about what you know about the climate, it’s not a weather forecast. There MAY be lamb deaths sometime during next September too. Secondly, if you do insist that it was a weather forecast, you only said Mackenzie. You therefore got the Southland and Otago regions wrong.

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Gary on 17/09/2010 4:48am

Oh wait, you do have a date there…but it’s the wrong date. So why are you crowing about it Ken?

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Ken Ring on 17/09/2010 12:12pm

My forecast was from 2 years away. I’m allowed a couple of days leeway. I said the depression would affect all areas from the 17th.(p351). Your criticism is ridiculous and shows you up to be desperate to find fault whatever I say. One can’t really take your comments seriously.

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Gary on 17/09/2010 11:21pm

So you’re admitting your forecasts aren’t accurate. The forecast is useless if the lambs are already dead.

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