Resident Jim Harkin said there was a hoar frost on the trees and it was crunchy on the ground.
"We had that good dump of snow a couple of weeks ago and that's still on the golf course, so won't be playing golf on the golf course for maybe another week or couple of weeks."
That was not going to stop Harkin playing golf today at the Otematata course.
"It's 24km down the road and I'm hoping it's a bit better than here."
Harkin said the freezing weather can make the roads treacherous.
"You get a bit of moisture on the roads and it freezes it's definitely a bit tricky at times."
With the shortest day of the year yesterday, a tweet from Niwa shows that it has definitely been cold down south.
MetService says hoar frost occurs when sub-zero air is moist enough - for example if conditions are misty or foggy - and the frost crystals grow into a thick coating on trees and bushes.
"During winter, Central Otago occasionally has several days of hoar frost in a row as the days are so short, the sun angle so low and the mist so thick, that the winter sun does not adequately warm the ground," MetService says.
Omarama was not the only place to get a hoar frost this morning. But no matter how cold it feels, nowhere in Aotearoa can compare to Scott Base at Antarctica where it was -31 deg C yesterday morning, but felt like -48 deg C due to the wind chill factor.
