A freezing front moving up the country will bring heavy snow and gales with it this weekend.
Metservice has issued its first heavy snow warning of the winter, forecasting 10 to 20cm to fall above 200m in Southland and Fiordland from Saturday night.
In some places the snow would fall to nearly sea level, forecaster Claire Flynn said.
The agency issued road snowfall warnings for all of the mountain passes, as well as the Desert Road, where up to 5cm of snow could accumulate around the summit.
Brrrrrr-ing on the weekend