I'm supposed to be driving to Welly tonight, where can I find the current status of the Desert Rd online? I have tried searching but had no luck, can any of you weather type people help out?

Have you tried the AA?

edit: http://www.aaroadwatch.co.nz/
also road snow warnings appear on metservice http://www.metservice.co.nz/public/weat ... ngMap.html

For all North Island Mountain Areas: Fine at first. Cloudy periods from this evening, with snow showers developing above 700ms about the Tararuas and Tongariro overnight. Southerlies, rising to gale in the south and east tonight and strong elsewhere.
FREEZING LEVEL: 1100 metres.

Quick summary, very cold, possibly a few snow flurries. Could be pretty slippy in the dark recesses (they may not thaw during the day). But metservice arent expecting "snow" to be an issue. Despite there being no warnings, I'd be pretty cautious of ice/frost.

Isn't she awesome!

What's expected for the roads to Invercargill from Dunedin tonight?

Transit NZ's site

http://www.transit.govt.nz/road/highwayinfo.jsp

Cheers. I'd checked those but wasn't sure AA covers weather as opposed to roadworks etc. We're leaving this arvo, so hopefully will be sweet. Its coming home Sunday night that will worry me...

AA will tell you if its currently closed. Metservice will tell you if they think it may need to be closed. Usually if metservice issue road snow warnings, the newspapers will run some kind of news thing about it. BUT, the desert rd can be pretty frosty in places, so take proper care in winter.

At this stage for sunday evening the models are going for slightly better. Metservice are indicating freezing levels round 1400m which is better, windy though so maybe not so much frosty.
Check here http://www.metservice.co.nz/public/moun ... ariro.html before you leave on Sunday for an indication of freezing levels. If it gets down below 1100ms, I'd be a little more cautious through the corners.

Cheers We were always going to be cautious, its just a matter of whether we'll have to take a detour or not.

Tis not all bad.
One time I got a long weekend, "the desert road is closed, I can't get back in time for work on monday"

tis pretty easy to avoid the barriers and drive through anyway

not that I've done that,

on a motorbike,

at all.

I'd rather have a long weekend.

When you get there - or to your destination, hows about letting us know as we have a ride at Pillars & Tree Trunk George tomorrow morning and if the road is closed I will stay in bed

Sorry, I think I'm internet free this weekend...