The
White
Stuff
Specialist snow forecasting for Canterbury — calibrated for the altitudes where snow level matters most.
What you get
The White Stuff is a two-tier email forecasting service running through the Canterbury winter:
Canterbury Snow Outlook (KEA) — a weekly Monday email tracking the 14-day snow risk across Canterbury, plus extra updates whenever a developing signal warrants them. KEA scans 100+ ensemble forecast runs from the world's leading weather models and identifies the patterns that produce Canterbury snow events, giving you an early heads-up well before an event becomes obvious in standard forecasts.
Canterbury Snow Forecast (YETI) — daily briefings from four days out to each event, with hourly snow-level detail for Canterbury locations. YETI is the deterministic, operational forecast: where the snow will fall, how low it will get, how much will settle, and how the picture is evolving run-to-run. Passes, towns, Peninsula, Plains and hills, all covered in easy to read detail.
Paid subscribers receive both — the Outlook gives you time to plan, the Forecast gives you the operational detail to act on.
Who subscribes?
The White Stuff is built for people whose decisions are directly affected by Canterbury snow events:
Farmers — stock movement, lambing decisions, feed planning, and the day-to-day operational calls that hinge on whether snow falls at 500m or settles all the way to the plains.
Road and infrastructure contractors — crew scheduling, gritting and clearing operations, plant deployment, and the lead time needed to position resources before an event lands.
Transport operators — route planning, timing decisions, and the early visibility needed to reroute or reschedule before conditions deteriorate.
Local councils and authorities — emergency response coordination, public communication, and the early situational awareness that supports good decisions during significant events.
Anyone else for whom a few hundred metres of snow level matters - will schools open? Will supermarkets and pharmacies have to close? Will I get to work?
Meet Mr Yeti - Blue Skies Weather's Chief Snow Forecaster for the 2026 season. Mr Yeti runs the public-facing side of The White Stuff — keeping watch for developing events, sharing the running commentary on Facebook, and getting unreasonably excited when KEA picks up a cold outbreak.
(Note: Tony does the actual forecasting. Mr Yeti does the cheerleading).
Why trust this service?
The White Stuff is written by Tony Trewinnard, a Canterbury-based weather forecaster with over 35 years of operational experience running Blue Skies Weather.
KEA and YETI are tools built and calibrated from the ground up for the specific task of winter snow forecasting in this notoriously tricky region — not generic forecasting software with a regional badge stuck on it. The calibration is based on actual Canterbury snow events from 1992 to 2025, including data records, atmospheric analysis and community observations. The latest international techniques for snow forecasting have been translated into our unique region, and the best input data carefully bias-corrected and matched back to verified past events.
The forecasts themselves are written by the same person who built the tools, with 35 years of meteorological judgement to know when to trust them and when to flag uncertainty.
I built The White Stuff because nothing else available was doing this properly for Canterbury.
Pricing
Full season subscription — $149 Includes the weekly Canterbury Snow Outlook, additional Outlook updates as needed, daily Snow Forecasts from four days out to each event, and event-time updates throughout.
Early bird — $99 until 7 June 2026 Same full-season access at a reduced rate for those who sign up before the season opens.
Flash event pricing — $99 When KEA picks up a significant developing event, a 24-hour discount is sometimes offered ahead of the event for those who haven't yet subscribed. A discounted entry point timed to when the service is most useful.
Free tier Pre-event teasers when significant events are developing, post-event verification summaries, and occasional educational content on Canterbury snow . No payment required, no obligation to upgrade.
Councils, contractors, and larger operators
If you're a council, infrastructure operator, or commercial subscriber where the forecast supports operational decisions affecting many people or significant resources, please get in touch directly. The standard subscription is priced for individual users; larger operators are typically better served by a tailored arrangement that reflects the scale of the decisions the forecast supports.
Contact: tony@blueskies.co.nz
The White Stuff is part of Blue Skies Weather, Tony Trewinnard's Canterbury-based weather forecasting practice. Blue Skies has been providing specialist weather services to New Zealand clients for over two decades, with a focus on agricultural, infrastructure, and operational forecasting where general-purpose forecasts don't quite reach.
The White Stuff is the dedicated snow forecasting product within that practice — the same forecaster, with purpose-built tools for one of Canterbury's most operationally consequential weather phenomena.