0 Major southern ocean storm bringing gales, cold and snow
- Weather
- by Stuart Gunn
- 23-09-2020
South Islanders: Snow and wind chill alerts as spring storm dredges up Antarctic cold next Monday
We’re at the end of September and well into Spring but a significant wintry blast of weather is on the way to southern NZ for the final days of September.
Storm map showing size and intensity
Lert Info has already issued an early heads up to farmers, in particular with new born lambs and livestock in Otago, Southland and South Canterbury.
Alert sent Thursday morning
The current data suggests snow flurries are expected in Gore, Lumsden, Queenstown, Arrowtown, Wanaka and potentially Dunedin . Sleet is possible in Invercargill with below zero wind chill at times.
Metservice Outlook
Daytime highs will range from just +2 degrees to +7 degrees across the lower South Island at the warmest point of Monday, based on Thursday's data. Wind chill will likely be in the negatives for a large portion of Monday in exposed areas of Southland. This could be deadly for newborn lambs.
Misery Index for Monday 7pm - Wind plus
temperature combined
Tongue of cold air from Antarctica
Swells
This may even be one of the lower to sea level snow events of 2020 despite us almost being in the tenth month of the year. Late snow storms in September and October do happen from time to time – Spring is all about winter slowly fading away and hints of summer slowly coming in.
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We can send you real time alerts including many exclusive only to Lert Info. For this event, already 5 alerts have gone out and we expect (based on similar storms) another 30-40 alerts.