Weather Watch: What about Autumn?

Just over a week ago I found myself writing a special weather blog covering the severe weather off the Bay of Plenty coast - well here I am doing it again. Yesterday yet another dramatic waterspout roared into life off the Bay of Plenty coast - in fact, in almost the exact same location as last Monday's one.

Local weather watcher Neill Ellis captured the incredible waterspout - you'll find his two photos by clicking here.

I am officially declaring yesterday as the start of winter!

At 10pm last night all but 2 main centres across the entire length of New Zealand were in double digits - just Whangarei and Kaikohe...and they were only on 10.

Auckland was hovering around the 6 or 7 degree mark with showers in the area - normally showers keep the temperature up around Auckland, but not when the air is coming from near Antarctica.

In this country most people observe the start of winter on June 1st.

Well lets be honest here - it was snowing in both Dunedin and Christchurch yesterday. In fact Christchurch had an official high of just 5 while some suburbs only made it to 3.

Hail storms lashed a number of regions from Auckland southwards and the wind chill dropped to a staggering minus 8 degrees in Christchurch yesterday afternoon. Taranaki was bombarded by wintry showers, some with thunder and snow to very low levels on Mt Taranaki.

The Desert Road in the North Island was closed due to snow while road-workers in the South Island were busy clearing the white stuff to keep the roads open around Queenstown - we have pics of that here.

When you see these photos it's hard to argue that winter hasn't arrived.

It is of my belief that Mother Nature has ripped New Zealand off this year - we have lost our Autumn. I think we got about a week or two of Autumn squeezed in but overall we where cheated of it.

But do you care? Well, actually, many of you probably do. The Weather Watch Centre ran a poll a few months back about which season was your favourite one - Autumn won. While Summer seems like the obvious choice many do change their minds once they're in the middle of it. Think about it, back in February when we had 20 something degrees at midnight coupled with 100% humidity...the fan did nothing, cold drinks sweated condensation into rivers on our bedside tables... the thought of a cool, crisp, night followed by a warm, sunny, day seemed oh so perfect.

That's Autumn - it's the more settled version of Spring. But this year - we didn't get it.

I feel like I'm on Boston Legal arguing this in court. Denny Crane. (you'll get that if you're a fan of the show). We had an "Indian summer" that lasted well into April. Remember Anzac Day? Most Anzac Days we see the photos in the Herald of foggy or frosty mornings... this year it was almost 20 degrees across northern New Zealand. We go from highs in the 20s and lows in the late teens just a few weeks ago, to highs of 3 degrees and wind chills of -8 this week. Seriously, less than a month apart. What is this, Canada?

I said not long ago that when you have an Indian Summer it's easy to forget that the winter energy is building south of us. One day it bursts northward and summer is flushed away in one go. Well, that's what we've just seen. We also have a number of days of southerlies on the way... it's not going to "warm up" for some time yet, especially at night.

A large high is moving in this weekend and into next week, but lows to east or north east of NZ may see that cold sou'easter continuing across the North Island. Big frosts, possibly severe, are on the way for the South.

The snow is more good news for ski fields across both islands. Don't count your chickens just yet...our unpredictable year may see a couple of warm nor'westers in June... it's happened before. This early start to winter is a good thing though...sometimes an early start can mean an early finish. So in the wise words of a man I truly respect - "lock and load". Denny Crane.

Top: (L-R) Scott Retter, Erin Dais, Tiana Teoka and Bruce Peters with their snowman on the Desert Road. Photo / Sarah Ivey