Hawke's Bay makes Niwa's Hotspot Watch: Drought on horizon?

PARCHED: Hawke's Bay is now one of five areas in the North Island experiencing soil moisture deficits, according to Niwa's Hotspot Watch. Photo/Paul Taylor

A run of hot, dry weather in Hawke's Bay has seen the region make Niwa's weekly Hotspot Watch as one of five North Island areas experiencing soil moisture deficits.

The watch, which monitors soil moisture across the country to help assess whether severely to extremely dry conditions are occurring or imminent, shows "much of Hawke's Bay" is now a hotspot.

Soil moisture levels had continually decreased across the country in the past week and persistent hotspot regions had the potential to develop into drought, the Niwa report read.

"The most significant decreases were observed from the Coromandel Peninsula to Bay of Plenty as well as Gisborne, northern Hawke's Bay, northern Auckland and eastern Northland."

Hawke's Bay Regional Council climate scientist Dr Kathleen Kozyniak said many of the council's monitored sites in the region had received of patchy bouts of rain in last month's thunderstorms.

"Soil moisture at our sites tend to be at medium levels or above for most of them except the one that we've got down in Porangahau that is drier than usual."

The southern coastal area of Hawke's Bay was the driest, having received about 70 per cent of its average spring rainfall, she said.

According to Niwa, next week's rainfall could range from as much as 25mm in the Central Plateau to as little as 5mm along the East Coast, and wasn't expected to improve soil moisture levels.

Although soil moisture in parts of the region was looking fine at present, conditions could rapidly dry out if there wasn't decent rainfall this month, and the weather forecast wasn't looking promising, she said.

Federated Farmer Hawke's Bay president Will Foley said: "I guess there has been concern at the speed we have dried out, from quite a wet winter and spring to now a very dry start to the summer and, from my own point of view, the lack of moisture in the 10-day forecast."

He said although there wasn't any confidence of rain in the short-term, it was too early to be panicking about the situation.

"No one's talking about drought yet but there's a lot of media coverage around water shortages in various towns and so it does make you feel a bit nervous about what's happening and how early in the summer it is."

Kleer Contractors spokeswoman Emma Davidson said their water tankers had been "absolutely flat out" filling water tanks, pools and cattle troughs, but added this was typical for the time of the year.

"Farmers usually start running out two months ago and it just goes from there. The demand for water in general goes up in summer but farmers are definitely running dry."

The persistent heat had been great news for Bay Blueberries owner Marian Hirst, whose crop was already being harvested.

"The crop is looking great, we can have a small gentle sprinkle of rain, that's what I would like and then continuing like this. Our berries are always delicious but this sort of weather is just ideal."