The fickle weather patterns over the past wee while has home gardeners, professional groundsmen and farmers alike reaching for answers.
All have been stretched, testing their knowledge bases for answers to cope with mainly the dry in case of the greater Whanganui region.
In December Whanganui experienced 41 dry days in a row - that is less than 1mm of rain in a 24-hour period according to MetService measuring criteria - the longest dry spell since records began in 1937.
The dry has continued in many parts since 3.2mm of rain fell into rain gauges at the Whanganui Airport between midnight and 6am Wednesday, December 20 to end the record dry spell.
However, what rain that did fall often missed Whanganui city and many parts of the hinterland.
Some farms received a spot or two along with even a few promising thunder claps and lightning that threatened more but failed to deliver.
One groundsman who needs to get the mix of wet and dry right, is Wanganui Jockey Club track manager Mark "Buckles" Buckley.
When raceday spins around ideally the surface needs to have just the right amount of "give in the ground" to protect the finely-boned legs of thoroughbred race horses jarring up, or worse.
He also needs to ensure the track is not so hard that when a shower of rain falls on a summer raceday the surface becomes like a skating rink when the dampened grass flattens on top of hard, compacted dirt.
Many race meetings have been postponed or cancelled outright throughout the country because of the timing of different weather patterns.
In fact, just in the last week alone, the Omakau gallop meeting was postponed, Thames was abandoned after two races with horses slipping and Otaki was axed before a race was run on Friday.
Whanganui has had its share of canned race meetings in recent seasons, but never before has Mr Buckley needed to water his track so much ahead of a meeting. Whanganui races next Thursday (January 11).
"We've really appreciated this drop of rain in the last two days,' Mr Buckley said.
"But I've never had to water so much as I have in the last few weeks. In my nearly 40 yearS here at the track we have usually applied around 15mm at a time, sometimes daily for a period. But this time I'm talking cubic metres, large amounts - it's been so dry.
"And this time just to be safe I used the Vertidrain in anticipation of this latest rain."
A Vertidrain is a tractor towing a rig with spiked tines that drills into the ground to allow any rainfall to soak into the turf, rather than lay on the top to eventually soak away.
"Even with this latest rain we still have a juggling act to perform to have the track right come raceday on Thursday. We probably won't be watering as much with more showers forecast on Wednesday, so we'll just assess things on Monday and take it from there," Mr Buckley said.