A video lasting three minutes of the pass was posted to social media with the message "Kia ora Aotearoa New Zealand: Snowy views over Te Waipounamu / South Island leading to a super clear view of Te Ika-a-Māui / North Island over @Wellington_NZ and beyond. How was breakfast? Aug 1, 2022 8:30am NZST" on the @ISSAboveyou Twitter feed.
With what seems like months of constant rain a view like this hasn't been seen in a while. "It's been a while since the weather has allowed us to capture these lovely views," a thread in the post read.
One Twitter user replied "Pretty hilarious that one capture from the ISS goes from coast to coast, we're so skinny."
But it turns out that yesterday's clear pass is one of the best on record.
"Actually, this is just about the longest pass we can ever get across the islands. If we have a pass from the west coast to the east coast that lasts about 30 seconds," @ISSAboveyou replied.
A satellite view of the whole country posted by Metservice shows how cloud-free the skies over NZ were.
Metservice posted: "A west to southwest flow brings clear skies to much of Aotearoa today, which makes it easy to view the fresh snow that has fallen on Tongariro National Park and the Southern Alps."
With cloud and rain forecast across much of the South Island this week it looks like the ISS crew got lucky.
