More snow for NZ’s Central Otago today

A report in The Press in New Zealand sady that weather forecasters have predicted more snow for Central Otago today after an icy blast wreaked havoc across the region.

The snow yesterday stopped planes with 1,500 passengers stranded and the polar blast expected to last all weekend, with roads closed yesterday across Central Otago, including the Lindis Pass, the Kawarau Gorge and the Crown Range, as snow that started about noon persisted.

Police warned travellers to stay at home or use only four-wheel-drive vehicles fitted with chains and schools and businesses closed and emergency services attended scores of car crashes.

Heavy snow blanketed areas from Roxburgh to Alexandra, Cromwell, Wanaka and Queenstown and Senior Sergeant John Fookes, of the Queenstown police, said the afternoon was chaotic, with cars slipping and sliding, the roads were blocked and traffic was banking up.  “It’s the usual thing we get once or twice a year, but certainly in recent years we haven’t had a better one than this,” he said.

Adding to the chaos were reported medical emergencies and a false report that the TSS Earnslaw was sinking in Lake Wakatipu.

There was about also 15cm of snow in Arrowtown last night and firefighters helped many people trapped in vehicles on the sides of roads, including two women with a toddler they managed to get on to a bus and an elderly woman they took to a winery for some warmth.

“There were people helping other people out all over the place. It was great to see,” Arrowtown fire chief Gary Hall said.

The snowfall was good news for skifields, with the Snow Park and Remarkables expecting to open this weekend with large amounts of fresh snow.

But blizzard conditions led to the Cardrona Alpine Resort deciding to delay its planned opening for today, but the arrival of snow was also timely for the Queenstown Winter Festival, which will be officially opened tonight by Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Mount Cook village was cut off last night, with heavy snow closing State Highway 80 and 20cm to 25cm at the village.

Light snow was reported at Twizel – 2cm to 3cm had settled – but police reported no traffic snarls.

Light snow was falling in Tekapo.

MetService severe-weather forecaster Bob Lake said conditions around the central South Island would improve today but much of Otago, Southland and Fiordland would be hit by a vigorous cold snap that would last until Sunday.

A heavy-snow warning has been issued for the far south, with up to 20cm of snow expected above 300m and lesser amounts down to 100m, from 3pm today until 9am tomorrow.

A few showers with snow to low levels were possible in Canterbury, particularly on Banks Peninsula, today.

Hundreds of people on scheduled flights from Queenstown were stranded yesterday after heavy snow forced the alpine resort’s airport to close, cancelling all flights, with only two flights making it out of the airport and one Qantas plane making it in before 11am.  Four flights were diverted to Invercargill and by about 3pm all other flights to Queenstown were cancelled. The bad weather upset about 1500 domestic and international passengers, with about 1200 of those Air New Zealand passengers, made up of 700 were unable to fly out of Queenstown and 500 could not fly in.

Queenstown Airport duty manager Darren Rewi said about 200 to 300 people were stuck at the terminal last night, with many trying to arrange alternative transport or accommodation.

“They’re sort of the ones not really sure what they’re doing … a lot of them are sort of trying to get north.”  “Those strandard would have to find themselves accommodation for the night and rebook their flights at their own expense.”

Mr Rewi said nobody appeared to be angry or upset by the situation.

“Everyone sort of sees there’s not much more you can do when it comes to weather and that.”  “It was not unusual for the airport to close because of snow,” he said.

“You’re in an alpine environment … you really have to accept that (it can snow) really.”

Invercargill Air New Zealand customer service shift leader Ron Pannett said yesterday afternoon a total of 330 passengers had been diverted to Invercargill and that six Invercargill buses took those passengers back to Queenstown.

Michaelle Kennedy, of Riverton, was one of the Qantas passengers diverted to Invercargill, saying, “I thought we were going to land in Queenstown and he (the pilot) just said the weather had changed and we were off to Invercargill.”

“We were pretty close to Queenstown, and they said ‘the weather has deteriorated pretty quickly’ and that was it.”

Report by The Mole and The Press NZ