2013 New Zealand winter storm [20 June] it moved across Cook Strait to create a new low just east of Kaikoura... that was the real kick in pants that caused a clockwise circle of wind." -Associate Professor James Renwick at the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at Victoria University has researched how polar conditions affect our weather. "To get an event like this, which is pretty extreme, we need the westerly wind that normally blows across New Zealand and the southern oceans to slow down and to buckle into a series of big meanders, north-south waves around the hemisphere." The air was so
Geology of New Zealand batholith dividing the Western and Eastern Provinces. Before Zealandia's separation from Gondwana it stretched from Queensland, through what is now New Zealand, into West Antarctica. It marks the site of a former subduction zone on the edge of Gondwana. The Eastern Province underlies more of New Zealand than the Western Province, including the greywacke and schist of the Southern Alps and all of the basement rocks of the North Island. The Eastern Province contains seven main terranes, the Drumduan, Brook Street, Murihiku, Dun Mountain-Maitai, Caples, Torlesse Composite (Rakaia, Aspiring and Pahau terranes) and Waipapa Composite (Morrinsville and Hunua Terranes). They