“This is quite early for it to be dry, and traditionally February’s our driest month on the coast.
“We’re experiencing high temperatures, warm winds, and they just make things dry out in a big hurry.”
O’Connor said the best thing farmers could do to help reduce the pressure of the dry conditions on farms was to make decisions early.
“I know of a number of areas where growth is stopping and people are having to make decisions about what, you know, number of cows they are milking or [they’re] buying, and supplement,” he said.
“You’ve just got to make the decision and stick with the decision you make.”
O’Connor says if rain doesn’t arrive in the next 10 days, the situation could become a lot more serious and discussions with other farming support groups may be needed.
He said fortunately weather conditions in late spring and early summer had been good, which had allowed many farmers to make baleage and build up feed reserves.
MetService meteorologist Lewis Ferris said he didn’t expect the weather in the coming weeks would bring much relief to the parched region.
He said the second half of this week could bring some moisture to the West Coast, but it wouldn’t be a big “rainmaker” event.
“Speaking about February as a whole, we would expect it to be drier than normal down around the West Coast of the South Island, given that we’re still under these sort of La Niña conditions.”
- RNZ
