Sunny skies expected to last

Napier woman Jan Cooper enjoyed reading the newspaper while keeping her feet cool in Pandora Pond yesterday. Photo / Duncan Brown

The sunny weather will continue for Hawke's Bay but farmers aren't concerned, says Federated Farmers Hawke's Bay provincial president Will Foley.

"The weather's what everyone was expecting based on the El Nino predictions, so everyone was prepared. There's a sense of relief the El Nino drought hasn't affected us much until now."

Hawke's Bay was predicted to be one of the worst hit by the El Nino weather pattern this summer, mirroring the severe drought of the summer of 1997/1998. Preparations had been mainly around stock levels, with some farmers selling stock before the summer or not buying stock in anticipation of an El Nino drought.

Mr Foley said it also helped that until recently it had been some of the best grass growing conditions Hawke's Bay had had for a while.

"Because of the rainfall we got until now there's probably a lot more greenery around. Now there's a lot of surplus grass, and farmers preserved a lot or had a lot of standing hay. There's a lot of feed for animals to get through ... everyone's pretty happy."

MetService meteorologist Nicole Ranger predicted this week would be mainly fine, with high temperatures across the North Island, remaining dryer in the east. Today's weather will start the week off on a high of 27C, and is expected to be mainly fine with some northeasterlies. There would be some scattered showers developing about the ranges in the afternoon, and a few showers spreading east. The hottest day of the week was also expected to be the wettest, with Tuesday's high of 31C dampened by rain. Rain would ease to a few showers about the ranges and then become fine during the day.

Northeasterlies would ease overnight, and die out completely on Wednesday. The day would be mainly fine, with a high of 30C dropping to 16C overnight.

Thursday was expected to be fine apart from afternoon showers about the ranges and light winds, with a high of 29C. Light winds and afternoon sea breezes would cool down Friday with a high of 29C.