Surfing the Clouds

The weather has been busy around the country today. Snow down south and inland Canterbury, and hail this morning in Christchurch. Tornadoes and heavy rain in the central and west of the North Island. The forecast is for more gale force winds in Auckland tonight.
Today is also the 50th anniversary of the Wahine disaster, the loss of the inter-island ferry in Wellington Harbour with significant loss of life. I remember the event well as a teenager, all those years ago. Ironic that we are having a similar storm today, disrupting some of the commemorative events planned for the day.
Often with predicted weather events like this, Air New Zealand is happy to move people to earlier flights when they can. My flight was at 7pm, but I purposefully went to the airport really early and yes, they put me on the 3pm flight.
The image shows us twisting and turning through the clouds on approach to Auckland. As I took that shot, appropriately I was listening to “Surfing the Clouds” by Deuter on Spotify on my phone. We then headed out on a very much extended downwind leg over the Firth of Thames to set up for a very long (and faster than usual) final approach. The weather was certainly pretty evil at lower altitudes, but the actual touch down was perfect. Love it !!