Snow, wind, rain

It is a wet and windy start to the week, with snow picked to fall in the lower south today while MetService warned that wind gusts more than 110kmh could cause structural damage, including trees and powerlines, and make driving hazardous in the North Island. Down south, high winds closed the Mt Hutt and Porters skifields as well as the Upper Buller Gorge. MetService warned motorists to take care on State Highway 6 on the West Coast due to a number of slips. Power cuts hit parts of Wellington and Waikato. For today, MetService was forecasting snow down to 1000 metres in the North Island.