Severe southerly gales batter Wellington as ferries and flights are cancelled across the country

A fierce winter southerly has slammed into Wellington and much of the rest of the country, cancelling Cook Strait ferries, grounding flights, closing highways and cutting power to homes as some of the strongest winds of the season sweep up New Zealand.

MetService put orange wind warnings in place for Wellington and the Marlborough Sounds, with gusts of up to 130 kilometres an hour possible along the capital’s exposed south coast. Weather stations at Kelburn and Wellington Airport were already clocking gusts of around 100 kilometres an hour as the system bedded in, and forecasters said conditions would get worse overnight before slowly easing.

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Meteorologist Katie Lyons told RNZ that gale-force southerly winds were already battering parts of Wellington, with heavy swells pounding the south coast. MetService spokesman John Law said the capital was in for “a windy story” and warned that it would be a rough night “even by Wellington’s standards”, which is no small claim in a city that treats its weather as a point of pride.

The most disruptive effects were felt on the Cook Strait, where both main ferry operators pulled sailing after sailing rather than risk crossing in the swell. According to RNZ, the Interislander cancelled its Thursday night Wellington to Picton service along with a string of Friday and Saturday sailings, citing significant swells and high winds. Bluebridge scrapped a similar run of crossings between Wellington and Picton, blaming a large southerly system moving across the strait. Wellington’s East by West harbour ferry also dropped two sailings.

Air travellers did not escape either. Several flights into Wellington and New Plymouth were delayed or cancelled, and the scheduled service between Wellington and the Chatham Islands was called off. The capital’s airport sits in one of the most wind-prone spots in the country, and southerly gusts of that strength routinely force pilots to divert or wait for a lull.

The wild weather was not confined to the lower North Island. Stuff reported that the storm was sweeping the whole country, with gales gusting up to 120 kilometres an hour and snow forecast to reach near road level in parts of the South Island. At the very top of the country, a gust of 137 kilometres an hour was recorded near Cape Reinga before dawn on Thursday.

Several South Island highways were shut as the front moved through. State Highway 8 between Omarama and Tarras, taking in the Lindis Pass, was closed, as was State Highway 85 between Lauder and Wedderburn. The Crown Range Road above Queenstown was blocked after a vehicle became stranded, and State Highway 3 through the Awakino Gorge in the central North Island was closed by rock falls and slips. Drivers were urged to delay travel through the alpine passes until the worst had passed.

Snow warnings were posted for a run of high country routes. Porters Pass on State Highway 73 was expected to collect five to ten centimetres at the summit, with a lighter dusting lower down, while Arthur’s Pass, Lewis Pass and the Lindis Pass all carried road snowfall warnings. The cold blast was better news for the ski fields, with Coronet Peak reporting about 12 centimetres of fresh snow in 24 hours and The Remarkables roughly 10 centimetres, a welcome top up early in the season.

Power was another casualty. Around 250 homes lost electricity at Te Kao, south of Cape Reinga, with lines company Top Energy expecting to have supply restored by Thursday evening. In the capital, Wellington Electricity warned residents to brace for cuts, saying falling tree branches and flying debris were the most likely cause of any outages. Households were advised to keep torches and charged phones handy and to report any downed lines rather than approach them.

Heavy swell warnings were in force for the Wellington and Wairarapa coasts, and a heavy rain watch covered the Gisborne and Wairoa districts. Forecasters also flagged strong wind watches across large parts of both islands as the southerly pushed north. The advice from emergency planners in these events rarely changes. Secure loose outdoor items such as trampolines and rubbish bins, tie down anything that can become a missile in a strong gust, check on elderly neighbours, and give trees and powerlines a wide berth.

Winter southerlies are a fact of life in the lower North Island, funnelled and squeezed by the Cook Strait until even an ordinary front can pack a punch. What sets this system apart is its reach, hitting the Far North, the strait and the Southern Alps in the same 24 hours. For ferry passengers and air travellers caught in the middle, the message was to check with operators before setting out, because timetables were changing by the hour as crews waited for the wind to drop.

Conditions were expected to ease as the southerly slid away and the winds backed off, though MetService cautioned that the strait could stay lumpy for a while yet. Anyone with weekend travel booked across the water was being told to keep a close eye on updates and allow for delays.

Did the storm disrupt your travel or knock out your power this week? Share your experience in the comments below.

This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂