Tauranga has a year's worth of rain

SOAKED: Tauranga is on track to have one of the wettest years on record. PHOTO/FILE

Tauranga has had more than a year's worth of rain with four months to spare and is on track to have one of the wettest years on record.

Metservice meteorologist Georgina Griffiths said in the first eight months 1344mm of rain had been recorded in Tauranga, 155mm more than the average annual rainfall of 1189mm. In Te Puke, 1944mm of rainfall had been recorded this year, 302mm more than the normal annual amount of 1642mm.

Ms Griffiths said with four months of the year left and rainfall forecast for the city, it was possible Tauranga could see up to 1800mm of rain, making it one of the top five wettest years since records began in 1898. The highest recording was in 1962 when 2050.1mm of rain had fallen.

"All it would take was a couple of storms," she said.

A big chunk of this year's rain had fallen in March and April, with 568.6mm of rain recorded and Ms Griffiths said it hadn't really stopped since.

Despite a wet August, with 159mm of rain recorded over 16 days compared to what was normal for an August - 117mm of rain over 12 days, winter as a whole had a normal amount of rain.

NIWA forecaster Chris Brandolino said 349mm of rainfall was recorded for the entire season and 452 of sunshine hours were recorded, both of which were normal.

The start of spring may have got off to a wet start, with 81.6mm of rain recorded in Tauranga as of yesterday morning - 80.6mm of that just on Saturday - and more rain expected this week. But there is good news ahead for Tauranga residents.

Mr Brandolino said Tauranga was likely to see warmer weather during spring. The average spring temperature for the city was 14C.

However, Mr Brandolino said predicting a warmer than normal spring did not mean Tauranga would experience warmer temperatures every month but over the three months of September, October and November a higher record was likely.

"It's not always going to be evenly distributed," Mr Brandolino said.

"Cold snaps can happen any time." he said.

Mr Brandolino said there would for sure be "cold snaps and choppy periods" over the next few months but overall it would "have been a warmer than average spring".

He said ocean temperatures would also be warmer this season.

Despite the expected warmer temperatures, people should not expect a drier spring with normal rainfalls expected.