Thread: Drought up north this down south

Sorry not really hunting related - although the ducks will be happy. Here’s the view getting into my place tonight

And the end of the road literally

I’m unsure about climate change. I think the wx is definitely getting more extreme

You are right at home we are starting to get dry real real quick, creeks have stopped flowing and dams are dropping every day. The last few weeks of these 30+ degree heat has kill us and yet you poor buggers down south are getting hammered with rain.
I feel sorry for you guys/girls down there i know what its like cleaning up after a flood. Stay safe and take care southland

Normal hot dry (37deg in the shade) Hawke’s Bay summer here

The internet just elevates general weather awareness, and awareness of everything else

The world in general was actually 1 degree cooler last year ( got that from internet )

Hope you don’t have any water damage there Nathan

extremely dry on the hauraki plains between the waihou and piako rivers.... the cracks opening up in the soil are huge........we are only about 1metre above sea level if that and have a high water table ...usually so when it rains it floods . there have been 2 major floods in the last 100 years 1938 and 1950 during the 1938 one the cheese factory had 18" of water thru it and cheese floating everywhere they expect a repeat within 100 years .....been 82 years now but stop banks are much higher now......

Yeah I'm on sand country in the far north
Iv been here 15+ years and this is the driest Iv ever seen it here
Feb is usually the dry month not dec/Jan so it's going to get worse before it gets better

Have the Waingawa and Waipouli rivers stopped flowing in Masterton? If so it would be the same as 1967, we shot trout in the pools with our .22s!!

I remember reading years ago how milling of the Congo rain forests would bugger up the weather for Ausi and NZ by reducing cloud seeding evaporation from the Congo forest. This Forest drives our weather coming from the west. Very dry in Canterbury due to prolonged hot dry Nor West winds more than just a lack of rainfall.

Yes although we had a tiny amount of rain Tuesday night it all blew away again the next morning, bone dry here in the basin today and likely to stay that way for a while. Still gets me out of lawn mowing to dry and could cause a fire. On another note DOC have closed the Edwards valley and possibly the Molesworth will be closed soon too due to the dry weather.

Originally Posted by Happy Jack

Yes although we had a tiny amount of rain Tuesday night it all blew away again the next morning, bone dry here in the basin today and likely to stay that way for a while. Still gets me out of lawn mowing to dry and could cause a fire. On another note DOC have closed the Edwards valley and possibly the Molesworth will be closed soon too due to the dry weather.

So rainbow road will close again this year? how dry is it around greymonth area anyone know?

Scads of motorbikes heading through here to Burt Munro rally at Invercargill - roads must be open again.

The coast is fine from what I hear it had plenty of rain.

Rainbow and Molesworth will certainly be closed for winter. Molesworth is currently slated to close on 10th Feb due to the fire risk

Spent part of the day pulling a few ewes out of the bog in a dried up dam and moving stock around trying to find water.

Yip, pretty bloody wet down here the last few days!

_DSF5158 by Ben, on Flickr
_DSF5174 by Ben, on Flickr
_DSF5218 by Ben, on Flickr
_DSF5325 by Ben, on Flickr

As far as the climate change question goes - I've been in Gore about 10 years and this is the biggest flood I've seen here in that time (peaked at 2500 cumecs and 4.8m above normal level), but its smaller than 1999 (and lots of earlier big floods like 78 and 84) and this time of year often sees the heaviest rainfall here. So it was probably due for one. The biggest I've seen photos of was 1913, before they had floodbanks on the river.

Urban flooding is probably getting worse/more frequent, but thats related to more development with higher densities, bigger houses and more hard surface driveways etc - so the rain runs off faster and more of it goes straight into the stormwater system instead of soaking into the ground. Combine that with decades of councils not investing in upgrading stormwater systems and its no surprise that you get surface flooding after heavy rain because the pipes can't handle the extra flow. New developments have to meet higher standards (the developers are the ones paying of course), but they're still feeding into the same old downstream network.

Sadly, looks like more incoming as well with a "T" heading for South Is end of next week. Yikes.

Originally Posted by GravelBen

Yip, pretty bloody wet down here the last few days!

As far as the climate change question goes - I've been in Gore about 10 years and this is the biggest flood I've seen here in that time (peaked at 2500 cumecs and 4.8m above normal level), but its smaller than 1999 (and lots of earlier big floods like 78 and 84) and this time of year often sees the heaviest rainfall here. So it was probably due for one. The biggest I've seen photos of was 1913, before they had floodbanks on the river.

Urban flooding is probably getting worse/more frequent, but thats related to more development with higher densities, bigger houses and more hard surface driveways etc - so the rain runs off faster and more of it goes straight into the stormwater system instead of soaking into the ground. Combine that with decades of councils not investing in upgrading stormwater systems and its no surprise that you get surface flooding after heavy rain because the pipes can't handle the extra flow. New developments have to meet higher standards (the developers are the ones paying of course), but they're still feeding into the same old downstream network.

Thanks for the reportage and pics @GravelBen !!!
Hard to envisage considering what most are going through with heat and no rains