It has been a snowy start for the school holidays with flurries down to sea level in parts of the lower South Island.
Dunedin locals caught out in a brief snow storm Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton
Flights were grounded for most of the day, leaving holiday-goers stranded as biting cold temperatures, blizzard-like conditions, road closures, and heavy snowfall took hold.
The snow flurries hit before Fox Glacier Guiding chief executive Rob Jewell had even left Wanaka early this morning for the West Coast.
By the time he reached the Haast Pass, the flurries were thick and sticking to the road.
"I struck about three to four centimetres of good, wet, heavy snow on the roads so that made for an interesting drive. But it was absolutely, sensationally beautiful with the snow all through the trees," Jewell said.
Sitting in the Fox Glacier township, he said it had been an interesting weather day.
"We've had a real mix of good spring weather. We've got a southerly blasting through, there's an intermittent hail shower in there, rain, bit of wind. Little bit of everything and look, even 10 minutes ago we had a patch of blue sky. But that's since disappeared and we're back into some cloud and rain so it's a real mixed bag today," Jewell said.
While he wasn't able to open today, he said the cold snap would be a boon for business.
"When we get up on the glacier it is going to be absolutely beautiful up there. At the landing site it will be all fresh snow, such a great trip to be up there. Those real mountain photos with snow capped peaks in the background and actually in the snow, it will be fantastic."
Dean Rabbidge farms sheep near Wyndham in south east Southland.
He was thankful they were through most of their lambing before the cold snap hit.
"So anything that was born in an exposed place, we just put a wee woollen lamb cover on it so they'll be fine now, and everything was pretty settled actually. There wasn't any wind, it's just a wee bit of snow coming straight down so everything was sort of hunkered up in shelter in tussocks, under flaxes and trees so pretty much almost left them alone, But I'll go around again shortly and see if anything else needs a little hand."
Snow being cleared from the streets surrounding Queenstown Airport. Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton
While he was doing well, Rabbidge said other farmers who had only just started lambing would be doing it tough.
Heavy snowfall forced multiple road closures throughout the day as cars slid into ditches, but the road to Milford Sound remains the only one not to reopen with up to 50 centimetres of snow potentially settling above 200 metres today.
Most main mountain highways have road snowfall warnings.
Further south, Stewart Islanders woke to snow covering the ground and beaches with more falling throughout the morning.
Jon Spraggon has been living on Rakiura for about 28 years - he said snow was pretty rare.
"The kids have been out playing in it for sure. But like it's not something that you can ski in or anything like that. But the young ones would have really enjoyed it," Spraggon said.
"All the bush this morning was covered, but now looking at my window, everything's green. Even we've had blue sky until a couple of minutes ago, but then suddenly it started to cloud over again.
"I think the worst part of it was probably the very, very heavy rain - that would be the most disruptive. The snow is something you can put up with."
Snow in Queenstown. Photo: Supplied / Simon Baumfield
The first departing flight of the day in Queenstown was de-iced and in the air without a problem.
But less than an hour later, the snow started falling and settling with staff working hard to clear the roads, footpaths and runway, and poor visibility forcing flights to be cancelled for most of the day.
The airport's operations and safety general manager Mike Clay said it was an unfortunate start to the school holidays.
Usually between 150 to 160 people are on each A3-20 plane - that adds up when at least 14 flights in and 14 out couldn't fly.
"It does create a bit of chaos in the terminal. We're really fortunate we're down at Alert Level One so people can move around the terminal and work with the airlines to have their flights rebooked but really it just creates inconvenience for our customers," he said.
The first of the school holiday flights landed just after 3 this afternoon.
Heavy snow warnings have been issued for Fiordland, Southland, Stewart Island and Clutha until tomorrow morning with watches in places for other parts of the South Island.
Metservice said the wintery conditions should start to loosen their grip from Wednesday.
