Although June is officially the start of winter, winter has arrived already to parts of New Zealand. Our cold weather comes from the south, from the Antarctic so it’s not surprising that the far south of New Zealand suffered the most.
Bluff, a small town near Invercargill which is at the far south of the South Island, was enjoying their annual oyster festival when the southerly storm arrived.
Listen to May 25 2013 to hear more about the oyster festival.
The oyster festival had to be cancelled but people could not leave Bluff because power lines had come down on the road.
The storm moved up the South Island bringing snow to many places. The high temperature for Queenstown today was just 3 degrees.
However, parts of the North Island had fine sunny weather. Kaitaia in the far north had 15 degrees today. This shows was a long country New Zealand is – it’s 2,000km from the far North to the Far South. That is one reason the weather in one part of the country is so different from the weather in another part.
Vocabulary
- officially – winter is June, July, August
- suffer – feel pain, have a hard time
- south, southerly (adj) – note the pronunciation of the first vowel sound is different in each word