It has been just 2.5 months since the carbon Emissions Trading Scheme kicked in for New Zealand. I’m sure if they give it a little more time, spring snows like this one will be “a thing of the past“.
WRECKED: The Wrens building in Yarrow St, Invercargill, shortly after the roof collapsed because of heavy snow
City store in ruins after roof collapses | Stuff.co.nz
A central Invercargill street was cordoned off yesterday after the roof of decorating business Wrens collapsed under the weight of heavy snow.
The building was one of at least four that caved in following significant snow on Saturday and yesterday.
But wait, there’s more:
City snowfall biggest in 50 years? | Stuff.co.nz
A Southland weather expert says the weekend’s snowfall could be the heaviest in Invercargill for 50 years.
‘Winter in spring disaster’ | Stuff.co.nz
Southern farmers will need to wait for snow to clear to assess their losses from the impact of the southerly storm that hit during the middle of lambing.
Federated Farmers board member David Rose, who farms at Oporo near Wallacetown, said while much of the snow had melted yesterday, the night before had been shocking, with blizzard conditions.
“Winter in winter is OK but winter in spring is a bit of a disaster.”
Heavy snow destroys $100k glasshouse in city | Stuff.co.nz
Heavy snow destroyed his $100,000 glasshouse at the weekend at Eldon Gardens, with the panes and shards of glass smashing down on to about 2000 young tomato plants.
Thanks to Tom Nelson for gathering links.
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Sadly it appears the green loons have taken over my hone country. Thank god I live in the UK where something like this (not the law and weather) could never happen.
Oh wait…..
The model was wrong-again.
It’s called Global Climate Disruption!
So the Prophecy of climate of mass Disruption was true…
Boring Prophet: “There shall in that time be rumors of things going astray, erm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things with the sort of raffia-work base, that has an attachment. At that time, a friend shall lose his friend’s hammer, and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight O’clock.”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/quotes
Much more than this, the main indoor sports arena in Invercargill has also collapsed under the weight of snow.
Stadium Southland, only ten years old and a major arena providing a home for all high level indoor sport, has totally collapsed and is now being demolished. The stadium had a flat roof and could not withstand the extraordinary snowfall. We are now three weeks into Spring and while a snowfall of some sort can happen occasionally, the volume dropped on Invercargill was truly exceptional. More is on the way for the rest of the week.
Similarly, a major supermarket has also collapsed.
In the North Island thousands of homes are without power as very high winds have brought down electricity lines, while many places face significant flooding.
Given the events of the past couple of years, this finding is hardly surprising – Kiwis are less and less concerned about climate change and not very convinced that we should ‘lead the world’ in ‘combating’ it.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/survey-concern-wanes-over-climate-change-3787489
I read somewhere that the reason the stadium collapsed was because it was wet snow, due to the area being so far north, and that it was heavier than normal snow. So with global warming the snow will become wetter and heavier and we can look forward to more stadium collapses…
Yes, the ETS laws will fix it all right. They’ll make it too expensive for people to heat their homes so some will die of hypothermia. Just think how many less useless consumers there’ll be. Its working just as intended.
As for the “compassionate” Greens, human welfare is the very last thing on their minds – except their own, of course.
Oh yeah?, some “global warming” for the kiwi’s.
Heavy and unusual snowfall is a clear indicator of Global Warming … sorry, that should be Distruptive Climate Change (or is the word “climate” banned now?). Anyway, the science says (so I’m told by impeccable authorities) that warming heats water that turns into steam that floats across to NZ and then freeezes of course on account of their nearness to the Antarctic and then falls as snow.
Warming –> Steam –> Antarctic –> Snow. Simples!
Also I’m told that there was a very warm summer in Russia followed by a heavy snowfall NZ. The correlation (with a lag of only a couple of months) is clear. And this correlation proves that the one caused the other – and obviously the one that came first, scientifically speaking, is what the scientists call the “causative factor”. Or so I read in the papers, anyway.
It’s good to see ETS works. The Kiwi version solved AGW in ten weeks flat…
So the ETS law obviously works, then. Just sign up, and it gets colder….
Its similar to Denis Howell being appointed ‘drought minister’, and creating rain inside three days.
Anthony, this snow storm is part of a large weather system “the size of Australia” that hit New Zealand a few days ago. It has brought strong winds and heavy rain to the North Island, and snow to the south of the South Island. Here in Christchurch we are unaffected, nice sunny spring weather (cherry blossom), with some wind, but nothing out of the ordinary.
You might be able to find some satellite pictures of the large weather system – it’s remarkable for its size, rather than its intensity.
All the best.
Seems a rather mixed report:
” The ingredients for such a heavy snowfall appeared two to three times a year but it was only once in about 15 years that it all combined perfectly for a big dump, Mr Fraser said.
The weather was very unsettled and the cold showers would continue well into this week.
It was not exceptional to have snowfall in Invercargill or to have it in spring.
Mr Fraser said cold winds from Antarctica and a deep low to the southeast of Campbell Island, in exactly the right place, helped to drag cold air up.
“It’s not a heavy fall for inland South Island standards … we are prone to getting the odd snowfall down here.”
OK, that might not have been Global Grumpy Climate Irritability Disorder, or whatever it is called now, but the earthquake DEFINITELY was!
Yep – the ETS is already working, we now get snow in spring. I remember in 1986, snow fell on 22-23 December in Queentown mountains, 2/3rds the way down on the Remarkables.
Like British Rail, it was the wrong type of snow that caused the damage.
However, in all honesty been a mild winter in Auckland, but very wet.
Anyway, looks like the Greens will get Climate taxes imposed in Australia soon as well, so we can have a laugh at them as well.
Remember it’s Global Climate Disruption now. So any weather event can be attributed to something I do.. and I can be fed an eco-guilt trip so as to open up my wallet.
Wake up world..!!
Yep….that’s what is to be expected with global warming…er…global climate disruption 🙂
I don’t suppose that our Michael Fish is on holiday in NZ is he?
Of interest is that the likelihood of spring snow was predicted a month earlier
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4034277/Polar-blast-lines-up-for-spring
The advancement of the polar front jet and its storm track can be seen here
http://squall.sfsu.edu/gif/jetstream_sohem_00.gif
The debate is if the decreased antarctic vortex (and associated ozone hole) is responsible for (increase) decrease in annular movement of the stormtrack.
As a New Zealander, I along with many others have been mightily proud of the fact that one of our major cities (Christchurch) has just suffered a major earthquake (magnitude 7.1) with ZERO loss of life – damn we build our buildings strong.
Now we have a 10 year old building falling down due to a once in 15 year snowfall!
Facepalm!
Gore effect! Also happened here in Portugal last week. Late Wednesday, the Drought section of the national Meteorological Service issued there first drought report this year. This happened because it rained so much since it was created last November. Now, they said that the most rainiest part of Portugal was beginning a drought period. Less than two days later, Mother Nature dumped a major rainfall in that supposed drought region. Irony: the meteorological institute didn’t detect rain that day, probably due to lack of electrical energy in the area. More at http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2010/09/chuva-na-seca.html (in Portuguese)
Ecotretas
Jimmy Haigh at 1:50 am, thanks Jimmy, very droll.
Purakanui
sorry to say that you are quoting the Govt. advisers if you think that spring down-under started three weeks ago. The first day of spring in New Zealand will be on September 23rd, when the sun crosses the equator heading south (first day of autumn in the N.Hemisphere too).
The fact that it is still winter doesn’t lessen the blow for all of those affected in the deep south. We have been hammered here in the North Island by days of westerly gales on the northern fringe of this huge system, centred between New Zealand and Antarctica.
Paul Deacon
I am happy that you folks in Canterbury are being spared the full force of this storm. On top of the earthquake you copped 16 days ago it would not have been nice at all. It was all a matter of timing, because we know that if that same southerly front had moved up the coast instead of inland, it could have been Christchurch headlining once again! If it wasn’t for the Southern Alps the east coast would be getting what us west coasters (North & South) are getting bashed with.
It would be interesting to find out what consideration was placed by the architects on the possibility of heavy, wet snow in the design of the many large, flat rooves that sucummed this weekend? I sure hope that predictions of milder weather in the future weren’t a deciding factor!
In comparison to last winter it has been generally milder in my part of the North Island (lower west coast). Mountain snowfalls arrived later than usual but have been consistent without being over heavy, and the number of falls are now putting 2010 into the top four years of the past 3 decades. Frost numbers have been above average although we haven’t had one since the rain really started settling in 6 weeks ago. We are now experiencing one of our wettest winters since the mid 90’s, nearly 300mm (12 inches) in the past 7 weeks.
La Nina is on the way. It usually means good times for us here on the west coast. Hurry up and come on down girl. We’ve had enough of your brother!
Sounds like construction regs need to be updated so that buildings can withstand heavy snow on their roofs. Japan is doing pretty well against earthquakes; NZ should be able to manage a bit of snow! 😉