Sunny, even when it’s wet

The wettest start to the year in Marlborough in more than two decades has even seen some grapegrowers put away their sprinklers.

Hunters Wines senior winemaker James Macdonald said he had never seen a season where they received enough rainfall that there was no need to irrigate.

The weather this year had been ‘‘quite different’’, Macdonald said, as rainfall for the first five months of 2018 was almost two times higher than normal for the region.

Figures from the Blenheim Meteorological Station showed 458.2 millimetres of rain had fallen from January to May this year.

In February, Marlborough recorded the highest rainfall (181.4mm) it had received since records began in 1930, more than 50mm more than the previous record.

Plant and Food Research scientist Rob Agnew said he would expect more extreme weather events if global temperatures continued to rise.

He said ex-tropical cyclones Gita and Fehi maintained their strength for longer than usual which contributed to the February rainfall being four times higher than average.

Macdonald said they started noticing fungal rot botrytis, which thrives in the rain and can destroy crops, much earlier in the season than normal.

While rainfall had been abnormally high, Blenheim was neck and neck with Richmond in the sunshine stakes.

Blenheim, despite being below its average, was only 1.5 hours behind Richmond, which recorded 1069 hours of sunshine. Nelson’s sunshine meter was languishing well down the list with just 945.3 hours of sunshine.

This year, Niwa chose to merge Nelson and Richmond into a ‘wider Nelson region’ recorded by the Richmond meter.

Richmond took the sunshine hours crown last year, which was conjointly celebrated by the entire region, although Nelson’s meter read 350 hours fewer than Richmond.

Nelson’s sunshine meter was still manually operated by burning a hole in a sun card, while Richmond had an electronic system.

Both methods of collection were scientifically acceptable and accurate, however Niwa scientists believed the Richmond site gave a ‘‘good overall picture of the greater Nelson area’’.