KEY POINTS:
Wow an amazing winter storm!
Roughly 9 days of winter violence from snow and sleet to hail and gales, thunder and lightning to rain and sunshine. Winter storms don't usually linger around as long as this one so consider yourself lucky it stayed!
To keep with tradition I lost a banana palm and a trellis. (For those who listen to me on our Radio Network stations you'll know that I'm jinxed with the weather. Last year I prayed for a storm and I got it - along with blowing a large gum tree down onto a brand new fence I had just built!). Others weren't as lucky as me, I've heard of roofs blown out, trees down on houses and cars and some pretty big power cuts.
Now our attention is turning to the next winter baddy. An area of low pressure made up of about 3 or 4 big depressions south of Australia in the Southern Ocean. Combined they cover an area the size of Australia and while they aren't going to move over us it does show the amount of winter energy south of New Zealand.
That energy will mean more cold, wet, windy weather for much of New Zealand - this time more focused on the South Island including Queenstown. Current models predict snow flurries from Thursday night until Sunday morning.
For ski fields it's more good news although some skiers might be wondering if the weather will actually clear long enough for them to hit the slopes!
More rain also on the way for the hydro catchments. We've definitely moved away from the weeks of large highs hanging over the lower South Island.
By the way, the forecasts I prepare at the Weather Watch Centre are mostly independent of MetService. New Zealand's an odd market for the weather industry - we have only one big player and they're Government owned and operated. Unlike other government forecasters around the world MetService is heavily commercially driven - that has its positive side and its negative side - but I'll save that for another day!
We use MetService radar images and sometimes their observations (which are available to the public) but other than that we use separate information so that we're not accused off "ripping off" our own crown forecaster. Yes, often we agree - a weather chart is a weather chart after all - and if there's a big high over New Zealand you'd have to be not paying attention to say "gales and heavy rain", but sometimes we don't agree, not by a long shot. And that's how it should be in a democratic society.
It's great that through the Herald and our Radio Network stations that we can express a weather opinion that differs from everyone else - it's exciting to share thoughts (and I'm sure interesting for you to read/hear something different).
We work closely with MetService and we're certainly not their competition - but we do have an opinion based on our own research, our own experts and our own independent weather data.
Philip Duncan
For the latest weather news keep up to date with The Radio Network's new Weather Watch Centre or the NZ Herald weather section.
Pictured above: A snowman sits where golfers would normally be making their way down the course in front of the Chateau Tongariro. The storm that has hit most parts of the country in recent days caused heavy falls of snow and closed roads through the central North Island. Photo / Alan Gibson.
