Mostly dry July gets some welcome rain
A wet spell will mar the end of the school holidays for Timaru children, but for farmers it will freshen the grass after more than a month of dry weather.
Tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday will see Timaru hit with all-day rain, after a mostly dry July to date that has seen just 14.8 millimetres – 12.8mm of which fell yesterday, according to MetService.
Pupils return to school on Monday, the day forecast for morning cloud and light winds and kicking off a mostly sunny first week back.
‘‘You guys have fared a lot better than those kids on the West Coast and in the North Island,’’ MetService meteorologist April Clark said yesterday.
She said the month was still expected to be ‘‘drier than usual’’ across New Zealand, with Timaru historically averaging 42mm.
Federated Farmers South Canterbury president Jason Grant said farmers would appreciate the rain, but looked forward to the return of the dry weather to help keep their feed stocks up.
‘‘I think we needed the rain. It’s been dry enough that a small bit of rain is good to freshen the grass up,’’ Grant said.
‘‘We’re still in the winter feeding on crops so it’s always good when it’s drier.
‘‘Over the winter period, moisture’s not so important and it can get quite muddy when it rains.’’
A little bit of moisture would help get the crops growing in the lead up to spring, but too much could see farm animals trampling the feed as they walked through the mud, Grant said.
Clark said the country had its ‘‘usual prominent westerly flow’’, which Timaru was sheltered from by the Southern Alps, but few southerlies.
‘‘The fact these winds haven’t been turning in Timaru’s direction, that’s the reason why it’s been a bit drier.’’
But there was ‘‘a bit of a southerly change’’ coming that accounted for the rain yesterday and forecast for the weekend, she said.
‘‘A broad area of low pressure expected to move over the country.’’ is