Farmers happy as Timaru’s rainfall is top in NZ
Streets flooded, fire crews were busy assisting the public, and farmers relished rain that resulted in Timaru recording the heaviest falls across New Zealand on Wednesday.
Following weeks of hot, dry weather, MetService meteorologist Gerrit Keyser said of all of their weather stations across the country, Timaru recorded the highest amount of rainfall on Wednesday.
In the 12 hours from 4am on Wednesday, the weather station at Timaru’s Richard Pearse Airport recorded 26.4 millimetres of rain, he said.
This was followed by Dunedin, which had the second largest amount of rainfall across the country on Wednesday. From 8am on Wednesday, 26mm of rain had fallen in Dunedin, followed by Le Bons Bay with 13.6mm.
Wednesday’s peak period for Timaru was from 7am, when 9.8mm rain fell within an hour, he said.
More rain is forecast for Thursday and if thunderstorms were to hit the area, this could increase rainfall amounts, he said.
Mt Cook had seen 5.4mm from 10am to 4pm on Wednesday. Lake Pukaki had 0.2mm and Oamaru had 4.8mm, in the same time frame, he said.
Mixed crop farmer Michael Black was ‘‘very happy’’ with the rain. He thought about 32mm of rain had fallen on his Beaconsfield Rd property near Timaru.
‘‘It makes a big financial difference. It helps to stop the crops yellowing off so early.’’
Federated Farmers national meat and fibre chairman Miles Anderson said it was just what he wanted ahead of Christmas on his Southburn sheep and cropping farm.
‘‘I’ve figured out the secret, whenever my mother-in-law visits from Australia, it rains, so I’ve been trying to get her to come over for a while now. She arrived this week and we have had 17mm.
‘‘It’s going to really help our crops especially. They have been struggling in the intense heat over the last couple of weeks.’’
Carina Batoon, a resident in Timaru’s Sherratt St, said the water level rose rapidly.
‘‘I dropped the kids off at 8.30am, and the road was fine. Then around 9.30am my neighbour rang up and said I should move my car, the water was all over the road.’’
A Timaru District Council spokesman said contractors had been out clearing blocked drains.
All the dry weather had cause a bit more debris to clog up the storm drain system, he said. While the drains were cleaned regularly, a patch of dry weather had caused the drains to be blocked more than usual.