But farmers have it under control, Rural Support Trust chairman and Mid Canterbury foothills farmer Peter Reveley says.
MetService forecast the cold front to sweep across the South Island today, and that it has, but there had been few problems for livestock, Reveley said.
“We’ve certainly had the cold blast but there’s been absolutely no problems.
“It’s winter farming at the moment and unless it gets any worse then, from what I am hearing, farmers have it under control.
“Certainly we have been fortunate that this storm hasn’t come with the force or the severity that was predicted, so for that we are grateful.”
Reveley said for the hill and high country it was winter as usual and lower down, farmers were prepared.
“The early warnings were good, we had time to get stock into shelter if we needed too and there’s been plenty of feed around so feeding-out is not causing any issues.”
Fencing had been a priority with overnight snow turning to ice with the heavy frost that followed.
“We have had to make sure we had a few extra standards in the wires or the weight of the ice just broke the fences down, but again we had time to make sure we things like that were all sorted.
“If we get more snow, and it is predicted, it will certainly settle now but even so at this stage I don’t expect there will be any major panic – it’s another day of winter farming.”
Reveley said in many respects the snow was welcome in Canterbury where five metres was needed back in the “high stuff” to keep Canterbury rivers running.
“Getting snow has been quite desperate to keep the rivers running – we need about five metres to keep the flow through to February while it’s (snow) still melting, that’s for irrigation, which is pretty crucial to farming in Canterbury.”
About two-to-three metres had fallen so far this winter.
“Another couple of good dumps would be more than useful if we get dry over the summer and need the water,” Reveley said.
In South Canterbury the picture was much the same but deeper snow lower down had created transportation challenges.
The annual in-lamb ewe fair at Temuka had been cancelled today because of the weather.
PGG Wrightson livestock manager Joe Higgins said he had acted on the weather forecast.
“It wasn’t looking good at all so we pulled the pin on that yesterday.
“We had 10,000 sheep entered and there was no way in hell we could have kept them over at the yards if they had got in, and then we couldn’t get them out,” Higgins said.
The sale had been rescheduled for next Wednesday, July 19.
