Had no rain since late December. Have come close to running out of water twice even though we are very conservative in it’s use, so had two half tanker deliveries for the tank. No grass, gardens are mostly dead, all pastures are bone dry, streams are running at their lowest we have ever seen. Fire risk is currently our biggest concern everyday as we are up in the hills and have only one way out through bushlands. Wish the fire risk & total ban was advertised ALOT more, even rural people are still not getting the message about it.

Has been a classic summer here in Chch – we have had a couple of decent rain events, but consistently high temperatures in January meant the fire risk has remained high.
February has been noticeably cooler than January, but seems drier too with predicted high 20’s ending up low 20’s with either NE or (lately) SW breezes keeping a lid on the temps
Have had to mulch and water the garden way more than last year thats for sure !

Had around 25mm in the last 40 days here, however all of that was over a few hours over night a few weeks ago. I know having a lot of sun is normal here in Nelson, but we do need some rain.

February may turn out be as dry overall for NZ as 1973, but for the North Island the record month was Feb 1908. For Hawkes Bay in seasonal terms, the late spring and summer of 1945-46 was the record-setting benchmark.

The ground is looking dry here in Loburn (10 minutes north-west of Rangiora) but nothing out of the ordinary. 77mm in January and 23 this month may sound like a decent amount of rain! But the very many 30+ degrees days – even 35+ in one case, have dried the ground. We have been watering but it’s still looking dry and cracked. As I said before it is nothing much out of the ordinary for North Canterbury.