Snow hits Canterbury

BY PAUL GORMAN, DAVID WILLIAMS AND KAMALA HAYMAN

LATEST: Snow and heavy rain has continued to hamper motorists around the South Island today.

State Highway 8 between Omarama and Tarras in the Lindis Pass re-opened at around midday after being closed by snow this morning.

SH1 was closed from Hilderthorpe to Oamaru. Snow warnings were in place last night for Porters and Arthurs passes.

A heavy rain warning was also in place for parts of Hawke's Bay, north of Wairoa and Gisborne, south of Tolaga Bay.

And in the south the AA is reporting many roads in the Waitaki district have again been hit by flooding and are closed.

Drivers are being asked to be careful as fallen trees near Oamaru and ice on the roads in Nelson, Otago and the Central South Island complicate driving conditions.

Meanwhile, parts of the country left sodden by weeks of rain are sliding away, blocking roads and forcing residents to flee their homes.

In the Tasman district, police say a large slip on SH7, the Reefton - Springs Junction road, has reduced the road to one lane about 2km south of Reefton.

A slip has blocked lanes on the road to Aramoana from Dunedin.

Earlier today, hail, sleet and snow fell around Canterbury as a sub-Antarctic airstream keeps temperatures hovering a couple of degrees above freezing.

Heavy snow showers blew through Hanmer Springs while hail and sleet continues peppering Christchurch and other parts of the region.

Snow has settled above 300m on the Port Hills with small hail coating the ground at lower levels in some city suburbs.

MetService forecaster Gerard Barrow said while there would be sunny spells between the wintry showers, temperatures were unlikely to rise by more than two or three degress today.

Wintry showers should ease by tonight in most places, he said.

Huge waves sink boats at Lyttelton's marina

At the weekend, "humungous" waves sank two boats in Lyttelton Harbour yesterday, almost 10 years after a violent storm smashed the same ill-fated marina and claimed more than 30 boats.

Magazine Bay Berth Holders' Association chairman David Grant said a fishing launch and a ferro-cement yacht sank yesterday afternoon in conditions "as bad as it gets".

Wind gusts of up to 111kmh caused two-metre-high waves, witnesses said.

Eight people, including several children, live at the marina, but no-one was hurt.

Grant said the boats' owners had been contacted.

Luca Newman, 10, who lives at the marina part-time with his father, Tim, said the bows of some yachts were "practically underwater" yesterday afternoon.

"It was really scary because the waves were humungous."

Luca got off his father's $500,000 catamaran on a thin, wet gangplank just after 5pm, much to the relief of his mother, Kaye Briden, who lives in Sumner.

A soaked Tim Newman, who runs a charter business, said the fishing launch went down about 2.30pm in 2m waves.

Only the launch's mast was above the water last night as creaking mooring ropes strained between the shuddering marina and pitching boats.

The ferro-cement yacht, which Newman said sank about 4pm, was still visible.

The Magazine Bay marina disintegrated in October 2000 during a storm that destroyed most of Canterbury's keeler racing fleet.

Plans for a multimillion-dollar, 450-berth marina at the site, complete with apartments, is being reassessed by Auckland-based Covington Group Holdings.

The Christchurch City Council has canned a working party set up to liaise with Covington and threatened to walk away from the project.

Grant said a breakwater was essential to control the waves.

He said three or four boats were lost each year at the marina because of bad weather.

Christchurch City councillor Gail Sheriff, who headed the working party, said a breakwater had not been built because "there hasn't been any money".

"Any money for a breakwater will have to go into the long-term community plan and have a lot of support for it."

She said plans for a marina at Magazine Bay had been complicated by by Lyttelton Port of Christchurch's plans to redevelop the inner harbour, including a new marina.

Briden said not having a breakwater was "dangerous for children".

"The council's spending millions of dollars on grandiose projects when the immediate thing should be to make the [marina] safe for people."

Briden would not stop Luca and sister Asti, 12, living on Newman's catamaran, but she was relieved that they were not staying there last night.

Asti said she lived on her father's boat for three nights each week and it was "really scary" to watch "quite a big fishing trawler" sink. She said she wanted the marina to be made safer for the boats and the people living aboard.

Grant said storms posed more of a danger for people who left their boats to help secure other vessels rather than for people living on boats moored at the marina.

City council city environment manager Jane Parfitt said the council would investigate any complaints from Magazine Bay berth-holders after yesterday's sinkings.

MetService forecaster Gerard Barrow said the strongest gust at Lyttelton Harbour yesterday was 111kmh at 4pm.

Rain would ease on the South Island's east coast today, and tomorrow would bring relatively settled weather for the whole country, he said.

Canterbury lashed, power cut

Thousands of householders lost power, a stormy Lyttelton Harbour claimed two boats and many trees and power lines fell as rain and wind lashed Christchurch and Banks Peninsula yesterday.

Snow showers and rain are forecast for today.

The wild weather has caused a large slip on State Highway Seven near Reefton, reducing traffic to one lane.

The slip is about 2km south of Reefton on the Reefton-Springs Junction Rd.

Traffic control is in place and motorists are asked to use caution while the slip is cleared.

About 3000 homes in Akaroa, Little River, Duvauchelles and other townships lost power for nearly two hours yesterday afternoon when both high-capacity lines serving Banks Peninsula failed at the same time.

Southerly winds gusting to 111kmh in Lyttelton Harbour caused two boats to sink, while gusts to 76kmh in Christchurch and surrounding areas uprooted trees, leading to power cuts.

A large tree falling across power lines in Western Valley Rd at Little River severed one of the two links into Banks Peninsula at 4pm.

Orion chief executive Roger Sutton said the failure of both lines at the same time was unusual.

"Each line has a fault every couple of years, so for both to have faults at the same time says something about the severity of the weather and was very bad luck."

Power was restored to the region by 5.45pm after the tree was cleared. The cause of the second line failure had not been found by then.

Sutton said he helped answer phones at Orion's call centre yesterday as staff attended to "lots of little jobs" across the region, many caused by falling trees.

"Most people are glad to hear you're on to it and grateful people are out there in the wet and cold," he said.

Christchurch sickness beneficiary Chris Van Geylswijk and his son were yesterday without power and unable to leave their Aranui property after a tree fell across their driveway, bringing a power line down.

"I can't drive out and I haven't got a chainsaw that is suitable to cut it," Van Geylswijk said.

The cold snap saw power demand surge to 600 megawatts at 6pm yesterday, the level at which water-heating controls are triggered.

Sutton said it was surprising to see demand on a public holiday 20 per cent higher than on Saturday, when more businesses were operating.

The cold weather is set to continue today, with Blue Skies weather forecaster Tony Trewinnard warning of snow showers to 200 metres in Christchurch's hill suburbs and sleet in the city.

Today could be the coldest day so far this year, Trewinnard said, with temperatures of about 5 degrees Celsius lowered by "significant" wind chill.

MetService weather ambassador Bob McDavitt said the sun would return tomorrow, with a northwesterly on Thursday before temperatures plummeted again on Friday night. Clear skies were not likely to return until the middle of next week.

McDavitt said alpine passes were affected by snowfalls of up to 25 centimetres.

Chains were essential on Burkes Pass, which was closed to towing vehicles.

The snow delighted ski-field operators, with the Roundhill ski-field near Tekapo gearing up for a July 3 opening.

Extensive flooding caused delays in Marlborough.

Water up to 30cm hit parts of State Highway 1 near the Awatere Valley-Redwood Pass intersection, with cars being let through one at a time yesterday morning.

Barry Feickert, who owns a Redwood Pass vineyard, said the rain over the past three weeks had been the worst he had seen it in his 12 years living there.

In Akaroa, Grand Hotel owner Eric Ryder said power cuts were "part of our life over here", typically happening once or twice a year.

"We can cope, we've got gas and we put candles out. It's nice and cosy and everyone huddles around."

Peter Reynolds, owner of the Tresori Motor Lodge, the Akaroa Village Inn and the Bruce Apartments, said the whole of Akaroa was affected. "The phones – everything went."

Chris Moore, of the Olive Grove bed and breakfast, said the business had managed nicely during the two-hour power cut with a roaring fire, candles and "a very good bottle of pinot noir".

"I said to my wife, `We are lucky to have a fire and candles and gas cooking, so we are OK'," he said.

- © Fairfax NZ News