Shortest day brings lashing

Week’s calm start giving way to wintry assault in all areas

The shortest day of the year has arrived, bringing with it winter’s latest assault on the country. A settled start to the week came to an end as winds picked up overnight, and vast swathes of New Zealand are set to be drenched as a complex low conjures up days of rain, gales and even snow for the South Island.

MetService put out a severe weather warning yesterday for southern Westland, with heavy rain expected late tonight and early tomorrow.

The heaviest falls are likely in Westland south of the glaciers, where 100-120mm of rain may accumulate in a 15-hour period, with trampers having been warned to watch for rapidly rising rivers and streams.

Severe weather watches were also issued for Northland, Auckland and Great Barrier Island, as a low and associated front approached the top of the country from the north Tasman Sea.

The weather is expected to drastically deteriorate as the moisture-laden front brings northeast gales and rain to northern New Zealand today and tomorrow morning.

Severe gales are likely to pound the Far North today, with the entire upper half of the North Island buffeted tomorrow. The gales are not expected to die down until Friday.

Niwa is expecting up to 62mm and 60.8mm of rain to fall in Whangarei and Kaitaia tomorrow, and 21.8mm for Auckland.

MetService meteorologist Andy Best said along with the winds it was going to be extremely wet along the eastern coastline of both islands, and the West Coast of the South Island, as moisture-laden tropical air caught up in the complex low moved south.

By tomorrow virtually the entire country will be under a storm cloud.

Bay of Plenty, Auckland, Northland and Canterbury are expected to be the worst affected.

Snow was also expected to fall down to 500 metres in Canterbury tomorrow and Friday, af- fecting alpine roads second week running.

Those at Treble Cone will be hoping the prized flakes head their way too — the Central Otago ski area was to open for the season tomorrow, but that has been postponed due to lack of snow.

The stormy weather is expected to track across the country on Friday but will be followed by a chilly southwesterly change sweeping up the country over the weekend, Best said.

But before then, the upper North Island would bask in spring-like temperatures thanks to the tropical air spilling from the complex low.

“For this time of year it’s still warm. Just a day after midwinter’s day it’ll be 18C in Auckland.”

Ironically the West Coast and Fiordland looked like the driest areas for the last day of the working week.

The weather is expected to clear across the rest of the South Island for the weekend to leave cold, frosty mornings. for the