Spring in Wellington
As I noted in the Winter in Wellington blog post we don’t often get snow directly in Wellington. Being so close to the coast the temperatures usually get cold (often down to 2 degrees Celcius) but usually not low enough to properly freeze.
But while winter usually won’t there is always spring lurking in the wings waiting for it’s go. Yes the temperatures are on the climb back up but that also means we get more wind and variability in the weather. With that comes the possibility of a direct polar blast coming up from the south to give us a surprise cold snap. That happened on Thursday the 6th of October with temperatures plummeting and cold winds coming through that in many ways brought a colder snap than winter itself did.
Snow on the Ōrongorongo and Remutaka Ranges area past the airport.
It wasn’t a huge dusting of snow and certainly didn’t get deposited down to sea level but it definitely reminded everyone why they still need to keep the winter clothing handy. We had black ice on the Wainuiomata hill road, hail across most of the city over-night and enough cold wind to make travelling by bus a little miserable if you had to stand out and wait for the service.
Tararura ranges leading into the Remutakas got a nice dusting.
It also brought something of a storm surge on top of the usually fairly frisky tidal action we routinely get. This meant flights from the airport were especially entertaining but the ones that were most affected were the inter-island ferries, that ply between the North and South Islands several times a day carrying passengers, trucks and cars. These are hard working ships that have to be pretty sturdy.
The Cook Strait is no joke.
Seriously deep water (up to 1.8km in parts) and positioned such that the normal coriolis force tries to squeeze the water through between the two islands. That means seriously strong currents that make the sailing always something you don’t take for granted.
Indeed a month or so ago we had a truck break it’s chains and get tipped over on one crossing. I got a chance to watch one ferry working it’s way out through the harbour heads that thursday..
Looking across to Pencarrow Lighthouses shows the number of rocks and reefs that need to be negotiated.
What goes up…
…must come down again.
And this is still in the relative shelter of the heads of the harbour. Once you get out into the strait proper it just gets a bit more robust with the strong current adding to the excitment.
One could almost expect the ferry to take flight here.
The wave height and strength gets up a bit too.
It makes for a very eventful trip from time to time and is equally fun to watch.
So while I definitely celebrate the return to warmer weather as we wend our way into summer it also has to be recognised that spring brings it’s own unique challenges.
I gotta admit I was very glad not to be sailing on this one and when you see the weather they brave it is remarkable we have as few accidents with the service as we do.