Downpours hammer Wairarapa crops

Berry growers in Wairarapa say the bad weather is another setback after an unusual spring.

But although the wet weather is not set to ease until next week, the region is not expecting the torrential rain heading for Auckland, Mt Taranaki, Northland, Coromandel and Tongariro National Park.

Strawberry grower Alan Bissett, owner of Wee Red Barn in Masterton, said the rain was "not flash", especially after a few days of humidity.

"It's pretty ridiculous," he said.

"Because with moisture, there is a lot of disease creeping around and the rain helps spread it. The humidity isn't good either because the berries soak it up.

"There's nothing much you can do about it, and it's been like this for the last two years, so we have rain covers which we spent $60,000 on. So now we get to put them to use. It's better than snow."

The rain would have a big impact financially, combined with an already slow start to the season, he said.

"In spring there were a lot of good, warm days, but there were also a lot of very cool nights. So despite the warm days, the plants were slow to get going after the cool nights.

"So we're going to have a very compressed season because the season has started later, but it will still end at the same time and there will be a lot of berries we won't be able to sell."

Te Ore Ore cherry growers Tim and Sarah Baily-Gibson have also felt the effects of the spring weather, with the season starting late.

"We won't have anything ready for Christmas this year like we have in previous years because of the unusual spring weather," Ms Baily-Gibson said.

But the upside to the late start meant the cherries were not yet ripe enough to be affected by the rain.

"At the moment, there's nothing ripe yet, they haven't split, so the rain won't affect them which is a good thing."

WeatherWatch.co.nz head weather analyst Philip Duncan said more flooding and slips were possible across the North Island and top of the South Island as rain covered most of the country, but Wairarapa would miss the worst of the rain.

"We don't expect to see what happened in Nelson repeat itself elsewhere, but there is still the risk of localised surface and flash flooding across most northern and western regions of the North Island."

MetService forecaster Paul Ngamanu said a southerly change today would bring cooler temperatures to Wairarapa but showers would persist, with some rain tonight.

"Those showers should peter out on Saturday and then things will start improving from Monday."

He said Masterton received 17mm of rain during the day yesterday, compared with 260mm in Nelson.