Drought-breaking week of rain ahead for Hawke's Bay

A wintry day at Te Awanga on the coast towards Cape Kidnappers. Photo / Paul Taylor

A drought-breaking week of wet weather is forecast for Hawke's Bay but it's too late to mitigate the impact of eight months of below-average rainfall.

That's the word from Federated Farmers Hawke's Bay provincial president Jim Galloway, who welcomed more than 10mm of rain overnight on his property near Bridge Pa and is looking forward to more, particularly from easterly conditions tipped for late next week.

But he said groundwater is so far in deficit, and with frosts having also appeared, trying to get the grass growing for adequate stock feed, particularly for cattle, is "a really tricky situation".

"The rain and keeping the temperature up is what we really need," he said. "The worst thing we would want would be a snow event in August."

The drought has brought home the need for precise planning and precautions, and Galloway said people still need to be thinking about stocking rates on their farms and plans to contract further feed.

"There is still feed coming into Hawke's Bay, but if they're looking for feed in August they're unlikely to be finding any," he said.

The hope was being shown in Hawke's Bay Regional Council rainfall data, with scientist Dr Kathleen Kozyniak calculating after overnight Thursday-Friday rain, this month's rainfall in the Kaweka Ranges, the Ruahines, and on the Heretaunga and Ruataniwha plains averaged more than 90 per cent of averages for June calculated mainly over the last 30 years.

It was a sign of rain soon exceeding monthly averages for Hawke's Bay south of Napier for the first time since October.

There had been more than 100mm at Park's Peak in the Kaweka Forest Park, and on Friday morning rain had been recorded, in the last 24 hours, at all of the council network recording stations from the Urewera country in the northern extremities of Hawke's Bay to the SHB coast.

Totals on the plains' ranged mainly from 5-20mm. With 12.6mm in the 24 hours to 6pm on Thursday and more to follow, rainfall at the Takapau Plains recording station, featured in 'Hawke's Bay Today' daily weather reports was close to exceeding that station's June average of 85mm.

But totals at the Hawke's Bay Airport station between Napier and Bay View and at Hastings had still been less than half of the June averages.

Former Hawke's Bay Farmers of the Year Grant and Sally Charteris had about 38mm since the rain started again at their Gwavas property (altitude about 480 metres). It followed about 10mm the previous Friday and about 95mm three weeks earlier.

Grant Charteris said the latest was "a good follow-up, but a little bit too late," and he is looking forward to more rain, and hopefully temperatures being warmer than average and without any snow, which he could otherwise expect at some time during the next few weeks of lambing.

The property, particularly known for deer, carries only 150 sheep and generally is lightly-stocked, at about 70 per cent of what would be normal at the end of June.

"A dump of the white stuff will change things dramatically (for the worse)," he said. "But we've had a lot to worry about so there's no point worrying about what you don't know, as long as you've got the systems in place."

With an announcement earlier this week, Government increased drought relief funding, across the North Island and significant areas of the south, to $19 million, mainly targeting farmers.