This week WeatherWatch.co.nz ran a story with the headline Where are the rainmakers? Farmers showing signs of concern following several days of increasing comments to us from those in New Zealand’s rural community. 

Parts of New Zealand are drier than average and despite the gloomy skies and odd drizzle patch for some of these areas WeatherWatch.co.nz says for the most part there is no significant rain coming in the next week.

Oddly, it’s not drought affected Canterbury we’re concerned with but instead the upper North Island and eastern North Island.

Today we wanted a second opinion so we checked in with the current precipitation outlook for Australia and New Zealand over the next 7 days via the US Government (GFS).

Basically Red means drier than usual – Blue equals wetter:

This confirms what we already knew – that a ‘Big Dry’ is now developing in the north and east of the North Island.

While this may be concerning news for some growers and farmers it is worth pointing out we do have a weak La Nina which is already impacting Australia and WeatherWatch.co.nz expects a rain making low to affect NZ at some point in January.

GFS – which provides this mapping – also suggests the second week of January may see a nationwide rainmaker. Despite some rain this week and weekend most of these North Island areas in the dry already will likely miss out on the most moisture – great for holidaymakers though!

Red = drier than normal. Blue = better than normal. The next week bodes better for drought affected Canterbury, but not so much for the dry regions rapidly developing in the north and east of the North Island.

– Maps / GFS, US Government
– WeatherWatch.co.nz