{"id":18125,"date":"2026-08-04T12:37:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18125"},"modified":"2026-08-04T12:37:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:37:44","slug":"schools-close-roads-shut-cars-crash-as-snow-blankets-south-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18125","title":{"rendered":"Schools close, roads shut, cars crash as snow blankets South Island"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Snow and hail across the country<\/h4>\n<div>Wellingtonians have been hit by hail today while snow has been falling on the Remutaka Range.<\/div>\n<div>The chilly weather has also brought snow to low levels especially around the eastern South Island including Dunedin and Christchurch.<\/div>\n<div>Metservice meteorologist Braydon White says cold southerly air is currently blowing its way up the country bringing chilly weather to the capital.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;We&#8217;ve seen some snow on the Remutaka road, generally down to about 300 metres. There have been some reports of some small hail around in the city, so it&#8217;s definitely pretty cold.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div>Most Cook Strait ferry sailings have been cancelled today due to forecast high winds and large swells.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<h4>SH1 reopens<\/h4>\n<div>State Highway 1 between Pine Hill and Waitati in Otago has reopened after a snow closure earlier today.<\/div>\n<div>People are asked to travel with care in the current weather conditions, with a MetService road snowfall warning still in place in this area until 1pm.<\/div>\n<div>State Highway 87 from Outram to Middlemarch in Otago is the only remaining state highway closure in the South Island due to snow.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Snow and hail across the country Wellingtonians have been hit by hail today while snow has been falling on the Remutaka Range. The chilly weather has also brought snow to low levels especially around the eastern South Island including Dunedin and Christchurch. Metservice meteorologist Braydon White says cold southerly air is currently blowing its way [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18127,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18125\/revisions\/18127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}