Wettest five months for Lake Ōhia farmer

Frosty fallen leaves in Kaikohe on Tuesday last week, the town's first frost of the year.

Lake Ōhia farmer Tony Schluter has been known to pray for rain, but earlier this week he was praying that it would go away.

He recorded 255mm of rain on 21 days last month, for a five-month total of 1141mm on 83 days, not counting the well over 100mm that fell over the first four days of this month.

"We usually get to that sort of figure by September or October," he said.

"It's the wettest first five months of the year I've seen in the 26 years that I've been keeping records. It's 181mm more than the previous record for those five months in 2003, and there's still a lot of winter and spring to go yet."

The Northland Age recorded 151.5mm on 18 days in Kaitāia last month, compared with the 88-year average of 130.2mm on 17 days, taking the five-month total to 775.9mm on 80 days.

That was still behind the 805.6mm that fell on 61 days over the same period last year, but well up on the average of 502.8mm on 61 days.

The three months of autumn delivered 434.1mm on 52 days in Kaitāia, considerably drier than autumn last year, when 573.4mm fell on 45 days. The average in Kaitāia is 315.1mm on 41 days, with the extremes recorded in 1946 (593mm) and 1958 (139mm).

Meanwhile Cape Reinga recorded its fourth-lowest daily maximum temperature (13.3 degrees Celsius), and Kaikohe its third-lowest daily minimum (3.3 degrees), which was also its third-lowest for autumn.

Cape Reinga recorded its fourth-highest mean minimum air temperature for autumn (15.3 degrees), and its second-highest daily minimum air temperature (20.1 degrees) for the season.

NIWA's expectations for Northland for the next three months are near average temperatures, higher than average rainfall, soil moisture and river flows.