First the far south of the South Island – including the towns of Dunedin, Invercargill and Queenstown – had heavy snow falls on Sunday. By Monday, most of the east coast of the South Island was covered in snow. The cold weather spread up the North Island. Wellington often has snow on the hills around the city but this time it was downtown also. Taranaki also had snow and this is most unusual. Even more unusual were some snow showers in Auckland and in the far north of the North Island where the temperature reached only 8 degrees. Their winter temperature is usually around 15 degrees.

　　In places where the snow was heavy, roads, airports and schools were closed. People were told to stay at home if possible.

　　It is hard for farmers who have to feed hay to their animals and make sure that sheep are not buried in the snow. Animals on New Zealand farms stay outside all winter. Most farmers in the South island say that lambing has not yet started. Lambs die easily if they are born during a bad storm.

　　Skiers are happy because a lot of snow fell on mountains. When the weather clears, there will be good snow for skiing.

　　Weather scientists say that weather like this happens only about once in every 50 years. Tomorrow there will be more snow for some places, and wind, rain, or sleet for others.

　　Vocabulary

　　?Heavy snow means a lot of snow

　　?Lambing is the process when lambs are born. Spring is the usual time for lambs. Note the silent “b”.

　　?Sleet is very cold rain mixed with snow.

　　?Clear weather means fine weather; here it is used as a verb to mean “when it becomes fine”.

　　Pronunciation

　　It is hard for some people to pronounce Queenstown (note that it starts with the sound of kw), usual / unusual / usually and gradually. Listen to the pronunciation and see if you can copy it.

　　Note that the “ie” in “skiers” and “scientists” are two separate sounds: ski /ers, sci/entists.

　　Try to put the first “k” sound in “Antarctic”. It is not “Antartic”.

　　“Temperature” usually has 3 syllables in speech: “temp /ra/ ture” but it is not wrong to give it 4 syllables.

　　“bury” is pronounced like “berry”.

　　Questions

　　?If a worker cannot get to work because of bad weather, should he or she lose a day’s pay?

　　?If airports are closed, should airlines pay accommodation for passengers who cannot get home? Should they give passengers a refund if the flight is cancelled?