Hot, dry, rainy summer predicted | Northland News | Local News in Northland

How's this for a weather grab-bag - summer will bring crispy-dry drought, heavy rain, muggy conditions, low river levels, soaring temperatures, tropical cyclones and cooling breezes.

Apparently Northland has seen it all before, most recently 21 years ago.

Farmers are hoping Agriculture Minister David Carter is about to declare the region is in the grip of a medium-scale climatic event. That being so, central government could then roll out support should conditions worsen.

But the drought will be over by January, say most pundits. After a spring that Niwa says was the driest on record, the region could be in for the wettest summer in 21 years, thanks to the La Nina pattern.

By the end of spring, the dry conditions, elevated sunshine and above average temperatures had resulted in severe soil moisture deficits (more than 130 mm of deficit) in parts of Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Manawatu, Nelson, Marlborough, the Lakes District and central Otago.

But weather guru Bob McDavitt suggests farmers bone up on their farm records from the summers of 1989 or 1975. The current La Nina pattern is warming up to be just like those earlier drizzly, grey summers, he said. The moist air and warm seas being dragged down from the tropics will ensure muggy conditions at times and rain.

In the 1988-89 season, also a La Nina, Northland got more than twice its normal rainfall; January alone soaking in up to three and five times more than normal.

"There may well be a deja vu of all this in January," Mr McDavitt forecasts.

Whangarei, Kaitaia and Kerikeri had their lowest spring rainfall on record.

Whangarei had 128mm of rain over three months, or 40 per cent of what normally falls. Kaitaia had 209mm, or 64 per cent of the average. Kerikeri got 160mm, or 36 per cent. Kaikohe had 195mm, or 56 per cent of the average since 1956, and the third lowest on record.