Wintry weather forecast across country for weekend

It is shaping up to be a wintry weekend with a blast of polar air set to bring snow, severe frost and icy conditions across parts of the country. Road snowfall warnings have been issued for all the country’s alpine passes and the Dunedin to Waitati Highway (State Highway 1) from Friday night and into Saturday. Snow showers were expected to affect the Dunedin highway above 300 metres overnight until 8am on Saturday. Southland’s Milford Road (State Highway 94) is closed on Friday night from East Gate (Hollyford) to Donne River (Westgate) as up to 15cm of snow was forecast including around the Homer Tunnel area. Milford Road Alliance said the highway was expected to reopen before 10am on Saturday once snow was cleared and any ice managed. Snow was expected to affect the Crown Range Road, linking Queenstown and Wānaka, on Friday night and early on Saturday morning with up to 3cm accumulating near the summit. Snow showers were likely to also affect the Lindis Pass (SH8) and Haast Pass (SH6) until Saturday morning. In Canterbury, snow was forecast for Porters, Arthur’s (both SH73) and Lewis (SH7) passes on Saturday. In the central North Island, the Desert Road (SH1) snow was expected to settle on the road with up to 5cm accumulating at the summit. Homes flooded in Grey District Weather watches are in place for parts of the South Island and lower North. Heavy rain and strong winds were expected, with the potential to spark tornadoes. About half-a-dozen homes flooded overnight on Thursday in the Grey District, and there was a slip on a road on Cobden, with more heavy rain likely. MetService head of weather Heather Keats agreed with suggestions it could be an ‘inside’ end to the week’ - at least on Friday and Saturday. “Sunday’s okay, but today and tomorrow, very much looking messy. “We’ve got a bunch of fast-moving features and fronts tied up and that will be thunderstorms, snow, heavy rain, maybe even some small tornadoes and water spouts. And that’ll race up and over the country - the North Island - tomorrow, and then it kind of races away. “But then we’re left with a very cold southerly flow. So we’ve got every type of weather coming over the next sort of 48 hours.” Overnight thunderstorms hit Westland and Fiordland, she said with about 250 lightning strikes. “Nothing crazy, but that’s just the start of it.” Heavy rain has also hit Buller and Nelson Lakes at the top of the South Island. A formal heavy rain watch was in place Friday and Saturday for the Tararua Ranges, north of Wellington, with a moderate chance of being upgraded to a warning. More were likely to come, with tornadoes possibly in the mix, Keats said. “The entire western coastline of New Zealand, I’m talking all the way up around Northland and the Coromandel Peninsula and then it’ll track a little bit over to the eastern side as well. “Thunderstorms, really strong wind gusts and the conditions are right to see some water spouts and some small tornadoes. We don’t say that lightly. Not all thunderstorms produce thunder, not all thunderstorms produce tornadoes. But we are seeing that signal in the models. So it’s going to be a watch-this-space today. “If you are anywhere sort of near those western coastlines, keep an eye on your app because if we do see a severe thunderstorm, we will put out that warning [to give you an] opportunity for you to get safe.” As for temperatures, among main centres Christchurch was likely to get bragging rights for the coldest, with it dipping below zero. Though snow has been forecast, “because it’s fast-moving, won’t be hanging around for long, she siad. “Once it clears out on Sunday, and we will have sun, we will have some nice weather coming for most of the country on Sunday, it just drops to be freezing. So we’re talking -4˚C for Christchurch. “We’re talking pretty average temperatures for places like Auckland, so high of 14˚C, low of 4˚C, but with that wind chill, it’s going to feel closer to 1˚C.” - Additional reporting by Allied Media [Missing Credit]