Just weeks out from the start of summer, heavy snow has blanketed much of the South Island.
At least a dozen flights in and out of Queenstown Airport were cancelled on Monday morning as the dump of heavy snow settled.
The snow forced many South Island highways to close which have since reopened. But the New Zealand Transport Agency still advises motorists to carry chains.
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One Arrowtown resident Graeme Hazlewood told Newshub he couldn't think of a time when he had seen so much snow in mid-November.
And tourists are relishing in the wintry weather.
One Minnesota couple told Newshub how they were shocked by the heavy snow.
'We left Minnesota expecting to not have snow here and then it started coming down," one woman said.
Constable Matthew Horn of Queenstown Police says the cold blast has come as a surprise.
"There are unseasonal conditions at the moment, you can see the snow coming down quite heavily," Constable Horn says.
"It just goes to show you never know what the weather is going to do from day-to-day."
He advised people to drive to the conditions, reduce their speed and keep their following distances.
Snow has fallen to 400 to 600 metres in some areas with snow expected to continue to fall into Tuesday morning.
Warnings remain in place with as much as 30 or more centimetres of snow to fall in Central Otago and Southland.
Freezing levels are expected to rise on Tuesday and heavy rain is predicted to follow the dump of heavy snow. MetService predicts between 70 and 120 millimetres of rain will fall in eastern Otago on Monday and Tuesday.
Outbreaks of rain and possible hail are expected over much of the country next week as the complex trough covers New Zealand until Thursday.
The extreme weather follows sizeable tornadoes spotted near Ashburton on Sunday and it's the fourth time in so many months that heavy snow has blanketed the South Island this spring.
In October heavy snow twice blanketed parts of Fiordland and Southland.
And, in September, parts of central Otago were blanketed with heavy snow that saw flights cancelled and left residents in Queenstown, Frankton and Arrowtown without power.
Newshub.
