The main issue was if water got cut off, meaning farmers were unable to feed stock.
"A dry summer you can work around but if you get your water cut off because it's dry that's when it gets really hard."
One of the options for farmers when they were struggling to feed stock was selling lambs or young cattle early, rather than raising them.
Jim Galloway, President of Federated Farmers Hawke's Bay, says it's important to "look out for your mates" with a drier than normal summer predicted. Photo / File
"Just get down to your main breeding stock early."
"If you get to an extreme that you can't feed your stock, you're going to have to sell capital stock which is your breeding stock for next year, so that'll drop you, that'll really hit you."
Kathleen Kozyniak, climate and air quality scientist at Hawke's Bay Regional Council, said October had seen 50 per cent of the normal rainfall.
"Most of that rain was in the north of the region, whereas other areas had only a third of their normal monthly rainfall."
Central Hawke's Bay was an area of particular concern, with soil moisture below average, which means some farmers are unable to plant fodder crops.
Soil moisture on the Heretaunga plains is at normal levels, and north of Wairoa it is above normal.
