Big chill in for holiday weekend

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ADRIFT: Wintry conditions have blown icebergs down to the southern end of the Tasman Glacier terminal lake.

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Blizzards and extreme wind chill will hit the South Island on Sunday.

Forecasters say the freezing outbreak will be colder than that which brought snow to low levels around Canterbury this month.

The snowy spell is likely to be short-lived, with clearing weather and rising temperatures on Monday.

As temperatures reached 11 degrees Celsius across the region yesterday - the first time they have been in double figures since Tuesday last week - MetService and Blue Skies Weather issued warnings of snow as low as sea level from Sunday morning.

Blue Skies forecaster Tony Trewinnard said the frigid southerly had the potential to bring between 4 and 8 centimetres of snow down to sea level on Sunday, although it was unlikely to settle to that extent in Christchurch.

Runners in the Christchurch Marathon events would need to take care, he said. "It is going to be a very cold, very windy and unpleasant day. It could be potentially quite dangerous conditions for runners. Given we will have strong winds, the wind chill will be significant on Sunday."

MetService spokesman Bob McDavitt said wind-chill temperatures could plummet as low as -10C in exposed places on Sunday.

Snow flurries were expected at 200 metres or below, with blizzards at times on exposed hills from Banks Peninsula to the Catlins.

Strong winds have blown more than 50 icebergs down to the southern end of the Tasman Glacier terminal lake.

Glacier Explorers operations manager Bede Ward said the retreat of the glacier two million years old and 27 kilometres long had been great for business.

"We're getting more and more icebergs now, so we're naming them in order to track and communicate changes and locations," Ward said.