Temperatures in parts of the country crashed by 15C to 20C in a matter of hours this week – but the mid-spring polar snap is soon expected to rebound back to warmer temperatures within days. A snowman in front of the Dunedin Railway Station as a polar blast bringing heavy snow blanketed the city this morning. "It's taken a very loopy pathway, all the way toward the South Pole, and then directly up into New Zealand," he said. Still, Noll it was unlikely this event, dramatic as it was, would greatly skew this month's overall average. For that matter, it's been more than five years – or nearly 70 months – since any month proved colder than normal, relative to the 1981-2010 baseline.

Source: Otago Daily Times October 06, 2022 22:54 UTC