Despite forecast snow across the Wakatipu area on Wednesday night not amounting to much, the MetService yesterday warned snow was expected down to about 500m early this morning around inland Otago and Canterbury.
The warning said there was "uncertainty" about snow accumulations, but some areas above 800m in Central Otago and the Mackenzie Country could receive between 5cm and 15cm of snow from midnight through to midmorning today.
"Regardless of whether snow or cold rain falls in these areas, conditions could cause stress in livestock without shelter.
"High level roads in these areas may also experience disruptions."
The New Zealand Transport Agency yesterday advised State Highway 94, Te Anau to Milford Sound, would be closed from 1.30pm yesterday, and from the Chasm from 2pm until this morning "at the earliest" due to a moderate avalanche hazard.
Viticultura operations manager Tim Deaker, of Gibbston, said frost fighters were on high alert on Wednesday night, braced for the worst following heavy snow falling across the district from Tuesday night.
"The frost modelling company that we use suggested it would be the beginning of the next front coming in about 3am and there would be a bit of cloud cover and a bit of wind that would pick up and that definitely was the case."
The company manages 26 vineyards throughout the Waitaki, Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes districts and while alarms went off in Waitaki about 2am yesterday, two hours later in Gibbston and about 4.45am in Alexandra "it was pretty benign".
"Tuesday night we got taken really unawares by how aggressive that front would be coming through — I was working quite late around the kitchen table and about 10.30 I noticed snow coming down and then about five minutes later it was really coming down and then five minutes after that you could see every wind machine in Gibbston kicked into life.
"That’s a really quick way of losing a lot of money — running wind machines in snow ... You’ve never seen such speed and velocity of people in a snowstorm on a Tuesday night; there were just people running everywhere trying to turn all the wind machines off as quickly as possible, because you can do real damage."
While that kind of weather event was not unusual for this time of year, a warm and dry spring to date meant vineyards were up to three weeks ahead in terms of the growth cycle.
