The weather is forecast to clear for the rest of the week.
The big dry
Niwa meteorologist Ben Noll said as of last week, much of the country had received less than half the rain that would normally fall in February.
“Cumulatively, dryness this summer has been the worst for a number of years; Marlborough, for instance, has been experiencing its driest conditions since the summer of 2019-20,” Noll said.
In some inland pockets of the South Island, it had been a decade since a summer with this little rainfall, he said.
As of Saturday, virtually all of the North Island and the north and east of the South Island had recorded more than 45 dry days during the season.
The trend had been influenced by an El Nino climate pattern driving warm northwesterly winds over New Zealand — often making for hazardous fire conditions.
“Conditions this fire season around New Zealand are generally a return to normal compared to the last two years, which were very wet in many areas,” Fire and Emergency New Zealand wildfire manager Tim Mitchell said.
“However, fire danger levels in some areas of North Canterbury, Wairarapa and Otago are close to the highest they have been on record.”
Fire season restrictions remained in place throughout the country, including Auckland, Northland and Bay of Plenty.
