KEY POINTS:
When boaties grumble about low tide at Lake Tekapo in winter there's a fair chance of power shortages.
If the lake was in its ideal state for this time of the year it would be lapping close to the grass domain of the pretty tourist village overlooking one of the most important parts of the electricity system. Instead, there's rocky beach up to 60m wide stretching down to the water's edge, an unmistakable sign of a system under stress.
Damon Odey of Timaru is as worried about winter power shortages as anyone, but more pressing are concerns about getting boats launched at today's Lake Tekapo Marathon which he's organising. "It's a big hassle. Joe Bloggs with a two-wheel drive car can't get his boat in."
Consistently low lake levels had meant the boat ramp had been extended three times in the past decade, he said.
Lake Tekapo can store up to 20 per cent of the country's hydro capacity and is the first link in the Waitaki hydro scheme which can generate a quarter of our power. By Meridian Energy's yardstick Tekapo is now less than 40 per cent full after record low inflows.
One hundred-and-fifty-year-old foundations from the original Tekapo Station, the first sheep farm in the Mackenzie Country, are now visible. That's rare at this time of the year.
- Grant Bradley
RAIN, SNOW BUT NOT FOR LAKES
A wintry blast advancing up the South Island is expected to bring plenty of rain and snow, but little help for dwindling hydro lake levels.
Heavy rain was falling in Fiordland yesterday and is expected to move up through Westland today, with cold temperatures behind the front likely to turn showers into snow.
The nation has its fingers crossed for rain to help to fill the southern hydro lakes as fears of electricity shortages over winter grow.
MetService severe weather forecaster Ian Miller said about 90mm to 120mm of rain was expected on the West Coast, but much of this would be of no benefit to key hydro lakes such as Pukaki and Tekapo.
Only about 40mm to 50mm would fall into the headwaters of the lakes, while rain at higher altitudes would form as snow which would not melt into the lakes until next spring.
``It will be useful, but it's not a large amount for one of these fronts,' Mr Miller said. ``There will not be too much in the lakes themselves.'
The front was expected to also bring severe westerly gales from Southland to Wairarapa and parts of Wellington.
Heavy rain was also forecast for parts of the North Island.
``So it will feel like winter in those areas.'by Jarrod Booker
"You see them quite often when the lake is drained in spring," said bed-and-breakfast owner Leon O'Sullivan. "You shouldn't be able to see them now."
Lorna Inch has lived in the town for the past eight years and was a regular visitor for 20 years before that.
Like other locals, she worries that low lake levels almost every other year are now the norm, affecting the area's picture postcard image and making it tricky for boaties.
"You wonder what they're doing to conserve the thaw. It's a resource where the benefits can be balanced for everyone."
It's been fine, clear and crisp for much of the week _ great for tourists but a headache for power planners.
Heavy rain is forecast in the Tekapo and neighbouring Lake Pukaki's vast alpine catchment this morning which will help, but from noon it is expected to turn to snow, which stays locked up in the mountains until spring _ and means heaters get turned up another notch.
- Jarrod Booker
