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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La Nina brings greater precipitation- snow and rain. Heavy snow in southern Oz, plus drought breaking rains. Up here in tropics yesterdays rain event broke records for heaviest 1 day September rain, was 10 times September average (in 12 hours). Last time we had this much rain in September locally was 1926. La Nina seems to be deepening, looking forward to very wet (and milder) wet season this summer. Not global warming, global cooling, but La Nina.
Ken
Ted Gray says:
September 20, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Absolutely Ted – political expediency is an extraordinary thing to experience.
Paul Deacon, Christchurch, New Zealand says:
September 20, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Couldn’t agree more and same for Chch – we are experiencing more weeks of clear crisp winter days with morning frosts along with regular westerly and southerly weather systems bringing decent dollops of snow onto the Southern Alps and foothills. Just like during the 70’s and 80’s!
Don’t worry, now that they have their permanent carbon tax, they’ll declare it’s working and the planet is cooling off, then they can start work on the permanent “snow tax” that’ll pay for severe winter-weather damage. At least it should, but you know how government works, they’ll just throw the money into a slush fund…
The snow was a mix of Hail, Ice, Snow and rain and was extremely heavy compared to any snow I have experienced in the UK or European ski fields which is normally light and fluffy, this stuff was more luck the slush you get on the side of the road!! The building regulations probably do need reviewing but I doubt this same event will happen again for many years with this strange mix of snow types.
This cold snap which hit New Zealand struck Tasmania, Australia, last week, 15th or 16th, I don’t recall exactly. It did feature on TV News, but I can’t find a link. For the last several weeks here in Sydney, Australia, we’ve been having average to below average temps so far for September.
My sister in the UK says very frosty monings, reminds me of the 1970’s.
The ETS is almost the last straw for me. Our government is used this eco-guilt tax to extract money from a productive sector (farming), gain political support from our apartheid-like political party (Maori Party… where the tribal elite have been gifted huge forestry interests and subsequently have received gigantic ETS tax credits..!) and every NZ pays more for electricity, even hydro/geothermal energy because of how our energy market is structured. And the kicker on this is the state owns many of the electricity retailers that are ‘passing on’ the ETS costs to the business and domestic consumers. Man… we’ve been stitched up!
Richard Holle says:
Moon at maximum South declinational culmination, on the 15th peak of severe/extreme weather expected for next three days, would be the default forecast.
There are actually published papers supporting the notion that the moon influences our weather…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/moon-causes-monthly-atmospheric-tides/
I’m ever more convinced that Gaia is pissed at the AGW’ers. First the Gore Effect, then The Gore Effect by Proxy on his followers, now any country passing ETS gets snowed under…
It’s worse than we thought. It wasn’t enough for our NIWA to lose their working out for adjustments that increased our warming trend in NZ, or our government to pass an ETS (which oddly enough seems to be very effective if our cold weather recently is anything to go by). Now our university faculty are getting in on drafting the IPCC report and suggesting catastrophic sea level rise is even more likely:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4152526/NZ-climate-change-warning
Huth says:
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! 😉
That is rather unfair. NIWA promised us that due to AGW we were unlikely to see many more snow falls, so why should we need design buildings to withstand any snow loading?
“Japan is doing pretty well against earthquakes; NZ should be able to manage a bit of snow! ;-)”
We thought we were doing earthquakes?
Meantime in breaking news today, the Royal Society of NZ drags out some old stories from the last IPCC report.
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/7988693/scientists-warn-nz-should-plan-for-higher-sea-levels/
Scientists warn NZ should plan for higher sea levels
NZPA September 21, 2010, 7:53 pm
“There have been a flood of new estimates of sea level rise,” said Prof Martin Manning, a drafting author of that most recent IPCC report.
Now director of Victoria University’s climate change research institute, he told a briefing for science journalists today that new analysis of the main contributing factors had shown loss of glaciers and ice sheets was playing a bigger role than was previously thought.
…
“Some scientists think that Greenland is close to a ‘tipping point’,” Prof Manning said.
The Eco-machine is in high gear it seems these days in NZ. I recall in the 2000’s DoC spending NZ$800,000 moving 800 native worms a few kilometers during a road building project. Yes, that is right. Each worm cost NZ$1000 to move. I could have done it for NZ$250!
I don’t know about moving worms, but it cost $6 million to move 6000 snails. Don’t laugh too much – there are are lots of endangered species in NZ.
http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/southland-times-the/mi_8058/is_20100410/endangered-snails-living-fridges/ai_n53155694/
Solid Energy national environment manager Mark Pizey said the company spent $6 million moving more than 6000 snails from the ridgeline of its opencast coal mine in 2006.
http://www.coalnz.com/index.cfm/1,448,798,0,html/Relocating-Native-Land-Snails
Powelliphanta “Augustus” is a land snail which is native to New Zealand.
During mining operations on the Stockton Plateau this endangered species was living along the Mt Augustus ridgeline. For mining to take place and for Solid Energy to meet its environmental policy to “Reasonably minimise the adverse local environmental affects that may be an unavoidable part of Native Land Snailoperating coal mines”, a solution had to be sought.
…
Following collection of the snails, much of the original habitat was moved 800 metres north. The technique is called “vegetation direct transfer” and involves precise excavation by mechanical digger so that soil and vegetation is kept largely intact and can be moved to a new location by track.
…
About 5% of all released adult snails have been tagged with miniature transponders for short-term monitoring.
Actually, the roof collapse was the result of metal fatigue due to inordinate expansion and contraction from the change from Global Warming to Global Climate Disruption. Natural frequency appears to be about every 7 minutes.
Here is the latest on the severe storms in New Zealand.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/storm-batters-north-island-3793845
Anthony, you can add to the list:
Tens of thousands of lambs have died over the past five days after snow and bitterly cold. Lack of food and shelter. Bigger disaster for farmers than the recent earthquake.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/snow-hit-farmers-call-help-3795585
Have any one attempted that previously?