Bay of Plenty experiencing one of the wettest winters in 10 years

If you feel like this winter has been more than a little wet in the Bay of Plenty, data from the Bay of Plenty Regional Council backs you up.

Many weather stations are showing this is one of the wettest winters for 10 years, the regional council said in a written statement.

The regional council's data services team has a network of around 130 automated monitoring stations throughout the region collecting valuable environmental data.

The data from across the region is well above what is considered normal for the calendar year. Some are close to double the normal rainfall.

Flooding at Utuhina Stream in March this year. Photo/File

The regional council's general manager integrated catchments Chris Ingle said while there was little the council could do about the wet, having the data was helpful to help planning.

"Most of us feel like there has been much more rain than usual this year and the data backs us up on that. It has been an incredibly wet winter," Mr Ingle said.

"The groundwater experts in the council are telling me that the groundwater aquifers are fully charged, to the point that new springs are popping up in completely new locations or in places that we haven't seen for decades."

Flood damage in Galatea. Photo/File

Mr Ingle said the regional council was asking farmers to keep grazing on stopbanks to a minimum to avoid damaging community assets with pugging and erosion.

"We are getting a number of reports of farmers moving stock to stopbanks for long periods to avoid low-lying and wet areas of their farms. This can cause damage to the structures and a weakness where the soil has been damaged," he said.

"Our teams are still working incredibly hard on emergency works identified following the April flooding and we have a list of more than 500 repairs jobs across the river schemes that are being costed and prioritised. But we are not able to do many of our physical works simply because the ground is too wet."

The Rotorua Lakefront flooded in April. Photo/File

You can see more details on the current wet weather on the Bay of Plenty Regional Council's live monitoring site.