Farmers around the country are anxiously waiting for rain this week with several regions expected to get some liquid relief.
Climate scientist Dr. Jim Salinger says a low in the Tasman for the first time in months and the easterly airflow should bring rain to official drought zones in Northland, Waikato, Auckland, Bay of Plenty and Taranaki. Other dry areas like Hawke’s Bay, Wairarapa, and Marlborough are also expected to get rain.
“A welcome respite is on its way as the low, currently north of the country, will cruise south down the west of the North Island, with wet north easterlies prevailing,” said Dr. Salinger.
“Rainfall predictions from the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA) for the week show 40 mm or more in the northern half of the North Island, Nelson, the west coast, western Marlborough, Coromandel, the South Island west coast, Southland and parts of Otago.
“There may be over 80 mm in some parts of these regions,” said Dr. Salinger.
“Unfortunately, only 10 to 20 mm is expected in the southern half of the North Island, and western parts of Canterbury, with less than 10 mm in the Manawatu, Kaikoura Coast and eastern Canterbury,” he said.
Heavy rain could be headed for Northland, which has had no rain for 7 months.
MetService says a deep low to the northwest of Cape Reinga is forecast to be near stationary during the next 24 hours or so, before slowly moving south tomorrow and passing west of Northland.
This should mean some rain for Northland, with a few heavy falls likely about the eastern hills north of Whangarei.
Kaikohe had 48mm of rain at the weekend, with heavy downpours in the Bay of Islands. Kerikeri had 26mm. However, less than 20mm fell in Kaitaia.
In Northland, there's very little feed on farms and only a few herds are still milking. That could mean a serious feed shortage in spring if there's no decent rain in the next couple of weeks, according to Federated Farmers spokesperson Denis Anderson.
Meantime, in Marlborough, farmers are in a holding pattern as they wait to see whether parts of their region will be the next classified as drought areas.
The province is very dry and a difficult winter is predicted with many farmers having already de-stocked, according to Federated Farmers spokesperson Geoff Evans.
Over in Waikato, prices for supplementary stock feed are high because of the drought.
A bale of wrapped silage is now $100 - that's an increase of 20%.
Three quarters of dairy herds there have now dried off with rain desperately needed.
