Land of the long white cloud

Heyward Point, near the Otago headland, pokes through a thick layer of fog yesterday morning, as the sun tops it at sea. The fog covered much of Dunedin city and surrounding areas.

MetService meteorologist Andrew James said the fog was caused by a high pressure system sitting to the southeast of Dunedin.

"This is pretty common in April.

"It’s one of the best months of the year for fog around New Zealand because the sea still has quite a lot of heat in it from the summer and as the nights lengthen, there’s more time for cooling overnight.

"When we’ve got a high ridge of pressure like this, the light winds allow the cooling to take place and that humidity in the air condenses out in to what we call fog."

No flights in or out of Dunedin were disrupted by the fog.