Weather: Rain, wind and snow to disrupt start of school holidays

By Patrick Manning, Massey Journalism Student

Torrential rain, heavy snowfall and gale-force winds will kick in for parts of the country as school holidays start, but worse still could be on the cards.

The change in weather comes on the back of a big high, which has slowly drifted away to the east.

Friday

A front is slated to hit the lower half of the west coast of the South Island on Friday afternoon, with the system moving up the country in the coming days.

There are orange rain warnings Friday afternoon in Fiordland, and overnight in the Westland ranges and the headwaters of the Otago and Canterbury lakes.

Weekend

There is an orange wind warning for the Canterbury high country from 9am to 9pm Saturday, with gusts expected to reach up to 130km/h, making travel over alpine passes difficult.

"It could be fairly windy and your car could be getting shoved around a fair bit, so just make sure you're driving to the conditions and making smart choices," MetService meteorologist Brayden White said.

Otago and Southland were also expected to have strong winds - up to 90km/h.

Throughout Sunday and the beginning of next week cold air is forecast to push up the country, along with heavy rainfall, and perhaps heavy snow down to 400m in the Southern Alps.

White said this could lead to road snowfall warnings on mountain passes.

"A great excuse to take the kids out for a snow day, but if you're planning on doing some travel, just know you may need chains or the roads may be closed for a time."

Another front is forecast to move east across the Bay of Plenty, perhaps developing into a rain warning.

Early next week

The bad weather is set to spread across the country and worsen into next week.

White said the bigger problem would be a slow-moving front forming over the centre of the country.

"The biggest area of concern is the Marlborough area, but there is a risk again that some of those places in the southern Wairarapa that have already seen quite a bit of rain from that most recent event could see a fair amount more."

On Monday there is a small chance of heavy rain warnings in Canterbury and eastern Bay of Plenty, as well as possible severe gales all along the South Island's West Coast and through Cook Strait.

Moving into Tuesday and Wednesday, the situation is set to worsen for southern Wairarapa and Marlborough in particular. MetService has moderate confidence of issuing a heavy rain warning, as well as for the Wellington's Eastern Hills, and possible southeast gales in exposed areas of Wellington and the Marlborough Sounds.

White said the rest of the holidays were harder to predict, but there was some good news.

"We are expecting this system to sort of fade towards the second half of next week and so we'll see conditions calm down, but we are expecting some more the week afterwards."

People should expect additional watches and warnings in the next few days, White said.