A big late winter storm in the Southern Ocean continues to churn past New Zealand bringing strong winds, snow, squalls and a temperature drop. The wind flow is also bringing some beautiful sunny weather as we forecast the other day, thanks to the blocking nature of the Southern Alps and Fiordland ranges. 

A large high south of Australia is slowly moving towards New Zealand at the same time the Southern Ocean storm (with central air pressure equal to that of recent Hurricane Florence when it made landfall) is also tracking eastwards away from NZ slowly. However, as this storm tracks away the coldest southerly portion will push into the lower part of the South Island overnight tonight and into Wednesday. This will see more snow, lowering to just 100 or 200m for a time. There isn’t a huge amount of moisture in the coldest portion of this event but the wind chill factor and misery index will be tough for newborn stock even if any snow is short lived or isolated lower down. 

By the weekend nor’westers kick in with Australian and sub-tropical connections, pushing temperatures up to warmer than average in places that are colder than average this week with snow nearby. Some parts of Otago and Northern Southland may be over 10 degrees warmer this weekend by day.

– WeatherWatch.co.nz