Ayden Clausen, 6, playing in the Pakowai Regional Park blossom on Sunday. Photo / Paul Taylor
Ayden Clausen, 6, playing in the Pakowai Regional Park blossom on Sunday. Photo / Paul Taylor
The relentless rain of the past month in Hawke's Bay is set to take a break for a few days, forecasters say, with fine weather predicted until Friday.
MetService meteorologist Alwyn Bakker said the tropical disturbances of the past week - which included severe thunderstorms near Wairoa on Friday night- were moving on.
In their place would be some settled spring weather, with temperatures in the high teens across the region, and into the early 20s on Thursday.
Perhaps most importantly, no rain is forecast after showers clear over the region on Monday morning.
"You've got a fine run through until Friday, and then the rain is likely to come through again," Bakker said.
How significant that rain will be is too hard to predict yet, he said. If it does fall it will add to what will likely finish as one of Hawke's Bay's wettest months on record - it was already the fifth wettest September recorded in Napier as at Friday morning.
Federated Farmers president Jim Galloway said it had rained more than half the days this month already and the end of last month wasn't much better.
"We've had a 150 millimetres of rain this month already, for Hawke's Bay that's pretty high."
A tree surrounded by flooding in Central Hawke's Bay after heavy overnight rain on Friday. Photo / Warren Buckland
Galloway, who runs sheep and beef and grows crops in Raukawa, said it was incredibly soggy under foot.
"It's just been constant, we haven't had huge amounts like they did in Nelson and Tasman but because it's been carrying on for a while the ground hasn't had a chance to dry out."
Galloway said the ongoing rain was testing the patience of farmers in the region.
"For croppers it's been a real issue, we had a paddock of peas that was supposed to be in on 6 September but the paddock hasn't even been worked up yet and it might be another fortnight away before we can put it in.
"For people that do have crops in already in the low lying areas the seed has got wet and rotted so there's going to be some really patchy crops."
The lack of sunlight hours was taking a toll on stock and affecting grass growth, Galloway said.
"Animals like the sun and they do a lot better when there's sun on their backs especially the young ones so yeah it's not the best time for farmers in the area at the moment."
If farmers were having any issues or needed help they just needed to put their hand up and ask, he said.
Hawke's Bay Fruit Growers president Brydon Nisbet said the ground was so waterlogged even small amounts of rain were causing flooding in orchards.
"Tractors and sprayers are getting stuck and we are at the time now when we need to spray because bud burst has happened so we need to make sure we've got sprays on.
"So it's becoming a bit of a nightmare for some growers, if you can't get the sprays on then you really open yourself up for fungus diseases like black spot and once you get the embedded into the buds and on to the fruit you can never get rid of it."
Nisbet said in the past week staff on his apple orchard got the tractor stuck five times trying to spray one block.
"Plenty of growers are making the decision to use helicopters for spraying because they're just making a mess in the orchard but that's a very expensive option."
Nisbet said two hail storms tearing through Hawke's Bay in the past week would have caused problems.
"The way the trees are now with the buds it's hard to tell how much damage the hail storms have caused, we will have to wait till the buds open."
The region needed 10 days of nice warm weather to help dry things out, Nisbet said.
