Weather calms after weekend

After the unsettled weekend weather, Nelsonians can look forward to more settled conditions as the week develops.

Rainbow Ski Area committee member Hamish Neill said there had been another 20 centimetres of snow at the skifield over the weekend.

It was closed over the weekend due to high winds and open again today.

Neill said they were thankful the high winds came from a direction that didn’t blow the fresh snow away.

He said it had been an encouraging start to the season and they were expecting more unsettled weather, hopefully bringing snow, later in the week.

Several flights into Nelson Airport were also cancelled on Saturday due to poor weather conditions.

Jetstar spokesman Phil Boeyen said three flights were cancelled due to weather at Nelson Airport on Saturday afternoon, two from Wellington to Nelson and one from Auckland to Nelson.

Passengers were rescheduled on the next flights.

A spokeswoman for Sounds Air said no flights were affected on Saturday.

Air New Zealand did not respond to a request for comment, but flights into Nelson were disrupted on Saturday morning.

Metservice meteorologist Claire Flynn said there was low visibility on and off at the airport on Saturday due to low cloud and rain.

The winds did not develop until later in the evening. While there were showers on Sunday, it wasn’t the same drizzly, low visibility weather. Temperatures dropped to two degrees Celsius overnight on Sunday.

Nelsonians could expect fine weather for the next few days this week, mostly fine with showers about the western ranges.

Flynn said more showers could be expected on Wednesday and Thursday.

However the low temperatures meant for frosty mornings.