95 days straight sunshine: The outlook for Coromandel's drought

In a year of drought, Country Dog Garden Centre Paeroa owners were relieved when the end of lockdown brought buyers back in for the popular choices of winter colour, fruit trees an

The Coromandel's Queen's Birthday weekend downpour and numerous rainy days since has seen an easing of the meteorological drought - but NIWA forecasters say recovery will be slow.

"Looking back at the New Zealand drought index for the summer season, this year in the Thames-Coromandel district there was 95 consecutive drought days," said meteorologist/forecaster Ben Noll.

Putting this into context on the drought index - which goes back to 2007 - the most memorable previous drought was 2013 which saw 53 days straight.

In Whitianga, January through April was the driest on record since rainfall records began in 1961.

"There was some beneficial rainfall for the tail end of May and June quite a lot of rain on the Coromandel and Bay of Plenty, so farmers would've been quite pleased," Ben said.

However the northern Coromandel did not receive the same level of rainfall than the lower part.

"For this month it looks like the lower Coromandel has 100mm-200mm of rain and the upper Coromandel 25mm-75mm. We've seen the easing of the meteorological drought but there are still some areas that are experiencing abnormally dry conditions.

"We're going to need more than just that one event we saw."