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Soils drying all over the region and rain needed
Monday, November 05, 2012
DESPITE a welcome drop of rain yesterday, soils are drying out rapidly all over the Wairoa-Gisborne-East Coast district.

Latest data from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) shows that the soil moisture deficit for Gisborne had reached 117mm by yesterday morning.

The 2.2mm of rain delivered in showers yesterday has done nothing but wet the surface. With fine weather today and the outlook for dry weather through to Wednesday November 14, the deficit will continue to climb.

September and October were dry months and over the past 65 days there has been a total of just 67.4mm of moisture. Over this period Gisborne can normally expect around 160mm.

With the past 15 days having been warmer and sunnier than usual, daily evapotranspiration rates have been running at 2-3mm.

Niwa charts show the drier-than-normal conditions affect an area from southern Hawke’s Bay to north of Gisborne. The area around Wairoa is the driest of all and Niwa data shows Wairoa is about 50mm down on its rainfall as at yesterday.

The fire risk to forested areas is climbing, and the fire danger at the Poroporo Forest near Ruatoria is very high, while it is high at Pouawa and medium at Matawai.
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