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More wild weather is bearing down on parts of the South as a fast-moving front moves up the country.
MetService has issued severe weather advisories for many parts of the South Island, warning of strong winds for parts of Southland and Otago, and there are road snow warnings for the Crown Range Road and the Milford Road (State Highway 94).
A strong wind watch is in place for Dunedin, Clutha, coastal parts of Southland, southern Fiordland and Stewart Island, for 15 hours from 6pm on Saturday to 9am on Sunday.
MetService says west to southwest winds may approach severe gale in exposed places.
Further north, heavy rain and "a whole lot of thunderstorms" are set to hit central parts of the Southern Alps and northern parts of Westland such as the Grey and Buller districts, MetService meteorologist Silvia Martino said.
Up to 90mm of rain is expected around the headwaters of the Canterbury lakes as well as rivers about and below Arthur's Pass ahead of 5pm today.
"That thunderstorm activity is expected to confine itself to the western side of the divide by this afternoon and we've got thunderstorms down into Fiordland as well that could have heavy rain with those," Martino said.
"Things are easing from the south - so our rain warning for the headwaters of Canterbury lakes and rivers is running through till five pm today - but slowly improving. Areas like Westland, Grey, Buller ranges [are] all slowly easing from the south so - by night time - should be getting a little better through there," Martino said.
Showers were forecast to turn into snow over the Crown Range Road late this afternoon - bringing up four centimetres of snow about the summit.
The Milford Road could see up to 10cm of snow accumulating about the Homer Tunnel entrance from this afternoon, with another 2-4cm expected to fall in the area - above 500 metres - on Saturday morning.
"We might see flurries lower than that but that's where we're expecting snow to accumulate to. For the Crown Range we're talking about snow about the summit and then lesser amounts - down to 800 metres - but lower than that there is the possibility you'll get flurries that don't settle," Martino said.
She also said people in Grey and Buller could see localised heavy downpours that were not necessarily visible on the wider forecast.