End of dry season just over horizon

Federated Farmers Rotorua provincial president Alan Wills said farmers had struggled with the dry weather earlier on in the season but autumn was so far faring better. Photo / Ben Fraser

The end of a dry-cyclone season is in sight for Rotorua.

The 2014-15 South Pacific cyclone season officially finishes on April 30 - ending the six months of the year when most tropical cyclones form in the South Pacific ocean.

But it has been dry weather plaguing farmers and growers rather than soakings from cyclones, said Federated Farmers Rotorua provincial president Alan Wills.

"Earlier on in the season, we went though quite a dry patch, there was no doubt about that and there were no cyclones to save us or anything like that," he said.

This season there were seven named tropical cyclones formed over the southwest Pacific and Coral Sea.

Most of these have stayed far to the north of New Zealand, with the exception of Tropical Cyclone Pam, which headed southwards from the tropics towards East Cape in March this year.

According to MetService, the strongest gust recorded at Rotorua during Cyclone Pam was 61km/h while there was 16mm of rainfall.

Mr Wills said, aside from minor rain, Rotorua was untouched by Pam.

"It was a fizzer. In some respects we would have liked a bit more rain but we didn't get it," he said.

"We were expecting to feel more of an impact because it was built up a little bit and often we do get quite a good dumping of rain from cyclones but with Pam there just wasn't a heck of a lot of it."

Mr Wills said farmers had struggled with the dry weather earlier on in the season but autumn was so far faring better.

"[The dry weather] is behind us now and we have had quite a good autumn. Everyone is pretty comfortable with where things are at on the farm as far as I understand it and it's really just going to be a good few months coming up," he said.

WeatherWatch head analyst Philip Duncan said Rotorua had missed out on much of the rain from any ex-cyclones this season.

"Pam was, in fact, a saving grace and frustrating at the same time," he said.

"Frustrating because Pam never delivered big rain to reverse the big dry that was forming."

Rain fell during April and now conditions are positive, he said.

Not so fortunate
•Aid is still needed for the victims of Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu
•Red Cross: www.redcross.org.nz/donate/tropical-cyclone-pam-appeal/
•Unicef: www.unicef.org.nz/vanuatu
•Oxfam: www.oxfam.org.nz