All hail: 'Unusual' hail storm sends mum and daughter on a 'snow' hunt
Monday, 19 November 2018
An impromptu, and rare, 'snow' hunt in November has resulted in afternoon screams of delight - music to a mother's ears.
The 'unusual' cold snap on Monday, as temperatures dropped from 13 degrees Celsius to 8C, brought a dump of hail to State Highway 1, between Blenheim and Picton.
In Rarangi, Tanysha Cox and her daughter Thea Cox, 3, were alerted to the 5-kilometre stretch of hail-lined highway by social media, so went to check it out for themselves.
'It started to get very, very cold and I thought their might be hail storms and saw an update on Facebook where people had started to post pictures so we got our coats and gumboots on and I told Thea we were going on a snow hunt,' Cox said.
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'When she saw it, there were screams of delight.'
Cox said she was amazed at the amount of hail lining both sides of the highway, and down the middle.
'I was really surprised, it must have really hit hard. I was like, wow when I saw the amount.
'Thea just loved it, her squeals of delight were wonderful to hear. There was also snow on Mt Robertson near Whites Bay, which is unheard of,' she said.
Metservice forecaster Lisa Murray said while hail was not 'unheard of at this time of year', she said it was 'unusual'. She warned the cold air was set to linger.
'We have had hail at this time of year before but it's not usual. There's some extremely cold air in the upper region of the atmosphere - temperatures should be at around -2C but we have temperatures of -13C.
'For thunderstorms to happen, you need three key ingredients, cool air, warm air near the surface and moisture. That contrast [on Monday] gave us thunderstorms,' she said.
Cox said Thea first saw snow six months ago on a trip to Wanaka.
'My aunty's from England and she told Thea all about having a white Christmas so she was convinced it was snow.
'Only last week, she kept saying when are we going to play in the snow too? I kept telling her it was too hot and then this happened.
'It was great fun but I'm looking forward to summer now,' she said.
Temperatures were expected to reach a maximum of about 15C this week, with more showers forecast until Thursday.