It’s beginning to look a little bit like a rainy Christmas

The McLean Park cricket pitch covers, already overworked this summer, are brought out again after rain at McLean Park in the Ford Trophy match between Central Districts and Wellington. Photo / Paul Taylor

A heavy rain warning for the western ranges of Hawke’s Bay has been issued as 2022 delivers its final blows via a forecast of daily rain for Christmas at the end of one of the region’s wettest years.

The MetService “heavy rain watch” was for 3 - 11pm today, forecasting periods of heavy rain, with thunderstorms and localised downpours possible.

Rainfalls could “approach warning criteria”, and it was possible there could be more of the same on Monday.

But the long-range forecast for the next 10 days was for rain each day - the last week of the school year for some, the start of the holidays, and Christmas and Boxing days.

The weather on Saturday forced the cancellation of Carols in Cornwall Park in Hastings, and the Hawke’s Bay men’s softball title was shared between METS (Meeanee and Taradale Sports Club) and Hastings side Saints after their final was rained-out at Akina Park, Hastings, each having won semifinals earlier in the afternoon.

Several other weekend events were able to be held, including a Ford Trophy one-day limited-overs men’s national championship cricket match between home side Central Districts Stags and Wellington Firebirds today at McLean Park, Napier.

After overnight and morning rain, it was threatened by the potential of going the same way as the two earlier matches on the park this season, both badly disrupted by rain.

A start was possible, with umpires allowing the game to start at 48 overs a side, just two short of the regulation 50. Rain forced play to a stop and the covers were put in place about 2.45pm, but, with another over less to play, Central Districts scored freely at more than 12 an over after the resumption to reach 250-5 with two overs to bat.

On November 22, the New Zealand Black Caps men’s team had a rare Twenty20 tie with India, still unseparated despite the use of the Duckworth Lewis recalculation process because of the number of overs that had been lost due to rain, while last Wednesday, a women’s one-day limited-overs international was stopped by rain and abandoned, with the New Zealand White Ferns 14-1 chasing the 156 scored by Bangladesh.

While rainfall for December is below average for the month, there has been some rain, mainly minimal, on almost every day of the month in some areas, and rainfall for 2022 is more than 50 per cent up on annual averages in some areas.

More than 1250 millimetres has been recorded at Hawke’s Bay Airport, compared with an annual average of about 810mm; the Takapau Plains recording station south of Waipukurau has had over 1410mm, compared with an annual average of about 860mm; and in Northern Hawke’s Bay there has been close to 1500mm, about 250mm up on the annual average.