A heavy snow warning was still in place for Otago and Southland last night, but forecasters expect conditions to clear slowly today, bringing frosts and sunshine by tomorrow.
Cold, showery southerlies hit the region yesterday, bringing sleet and rain, and leaving a light dusting of snow on the hilltops but 10cm to 20cm of snow was expected to accumulate down to 300m and lighter falls down to 100m up to 6am this morning.
Temperatures struggled to rise yesterday, taking until 10am for Dunedin to reach more than 3degC and until 11am to exceed 3.4degC at the airport.
Both places reached 6degC by mid-afternoon.
Queenstown was at 1degC until 7am but only reached 3.8degC by 3.30pm and Wanaka went from 0degC to 6.8degC.
Oamaru's temperatures fell mid-afternoon dropping 2degC to 5degC at 3.30pm in town and 4degC at the airport.
About 2cm of snow was reported at Clarks Junction yesterday morning, with Transit issuing a warning for drivers to use chains on SH87 Outram to Middlemarch but that was lifted by the afternoon.
While the southerlies were expected to gradually improve today, temperatures were not, as severe frosts were forecast for tomorrow morning.
MetService weather ambassador Bob McDavitt said there were three reasons why the recent snowfalls had been so heavy.
Since mid-July, the Tasman Sea had been a breeding ground for low pressure systems and a number of large lows had made their way into the New Zealand region.
Those lows had often moved quite slowly, allowing more time for snow or rain to fall and during the last week or so a lot of cold air from the Southern Ocean had been drawn north and then over New Zealand, tipping the balance towards snow and away from rain, he said.
