I’ve often said that New Zealand is a wild place where earthquakes, eruptions and weather make life “interesting.”
Windy Welly is renowned for its occasional bursts of wild weather, and often it’s the southerly storm which can really stir things up.
Local website The Wellingtonista features a video of one of the Cook Strait ferries battling a classic southerly storm. Whilst I’ve been on some “exciting” sailings which I reckon were more fun than a bungy jump, I’ve never been on a sailing like this one! If you’re on dial-up, allow 30 minutes for the video to download, depending on your connection speed.
The website also has a link to a background story on the southerly storm of February 5-7, 2002. The Met Service story has some impressive photos of the Suilven battling the elements, and describes how the weather conditions came about.
If that hasn’t put you off travelling, have a look at the link to the older story about white-knuckle landings at Wellington International Airport. Once again, this is not an every-day occurrence, but many of us have stories of bumpy landings that have earned the pilots a round of applause as we taxied to the terminal building. Have a barf bag ready when you view the movie.
There are some good clips of those “crabbed landings” where the cross-wind causes them to land with the aircraft’s nose off-true, requiring the pilots to bring the nose around at the last minute to make sure it’s aligned with the runway.
Download time is a bit longer than the ferry video, if you’re on dial-up. Note the comment about the soundtrack – you may want to turn your speakers off.