Autumn: Where the bloody hell are you?

Skifields open early after heavy snowfalls but promise of milder weather on its way.

Frost nipped at Kiwis’ toes, collars were zipped up tight against a polar blast and skifields opened early. So what the hell happened to autumn? It appears it could still be on its way.

Despite a cool start to June and the official start to winter on Friday, it could be milder by the middle and end of the month, according to Niwa, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.

“Temperatures won’t be as cold as they have been over the past week,” said principal forecasting scientist Chris Brandolino.

Apart from a cold snap next week in the South Island, June temperatures are expected to be near or above average for much of the country.

June rainfall in the North Island is also expected to be near or above average. Much of the South Island, apart from the east coast from Marlborough to North Canterbury, is expected to be drier than normal.

MetService said a low-pressure system rolling on to the North Island from the Tasman Sea is bringing milder temperatures and rain, but the chill is expected to hang on longer in the south.

Meteorologist John Law said overnight temperatures wouldn’t be so low and were even returning to double digits in parts of the North Island.

But in the Southern Lakes district, “it will still be really cold” for a few days.

Snow is expected at Mt Ruapehu today and is forecast to reach below the skifield carparks.

“Temperatures won’t be as cold as they have been over the past week.”

On Monday, Whanga¯rei in the “tropical north” shivered at 0.8C, its third coldest overnight minimum on record for May.

At Middlemarch the daytime maximum was even lower, at just 0.2C, on Wednesday. That broke the May record, of 2C, set in 2006, for the Otago town’s lowest maximum.

The coldest inhabited place this week was Ranfurly in Otago, where the mercury dropped on Friday morning to -9.1C. The town holds the national record for the lowest temperature, -25.6C, set on July 17, 1903, MetService said.

Whakapapa skifield on Mt Ruapehu opened its Happy Valley learner area under blue skies on Friday, a day earlier than planned after heavy snowfalls supplemented the field’s snow factory.

Coronet Peak near Queenstown opened for a pre-season “teaser” for skiers and boarders yesterday ahead of its scheduled opening on June 16.

Cardrona is doing the same for the whole weekend. During the week, ski tourers trekked up the Pisa and Crown ranges near Wanaka and Queenstown, and Mt Ruapehu to carve some turns on the autumn snow which, unusually, has persisted into winter.