Wild weather

Winter has arrived although, officially, June is our first winter month. However, in New Zealand, wild weather can come at any time.

Snow closed roads in the south of the South Island – Dunedin, Central Otago and Southland. Surprisingly, Hawkes Bay on the east coast of the North Island, also received snow falls. In fact, snow fell on hills from Queenstown along the east coast, through Wellington and as far north as Napier and Taupo. Hawkes Bay seldom has snow.

Some places lost electricity as power lines, with heavy snow on them, fell down. In Dunedin, lightning cut electricity to some houses. Staff of electricity companies were busy fixing the problems today.

The wind in Cook Strait was so strong that waves were up to 6 metres high and ferries between the North and South Islands were cancelled.

Other places, like Auckland, had heavy rain, strong winds and cold temperatures. The cold weather will continue for the next few days.

Note:

The official seasons in New Zealand are:
• Summer – December, January, February
• Autumn – March, April, May
• Winter – June, July, August
• Spring – September, October, November

Vocabulary

• wild weather – opposite of calm weather
• seldom – not very often
• strait – narrow sea between two islands
• ferry – a boat which goes backwards and forwards between 2 places, carrying passengers e.g. across a river

Grammar
1 This is a useful structure:
busy fixing, busy doing s.t, busy washing etc
e.g I’m busy doing homework

2. The wind was so strong that …
Noun was so + adjective that e.g. I was so happy that I danced; The test was so difficult that nobody finished; The teacher was so nice that I relaxed.