The Country 04/07/25: Chris Brandolino talks to Jamie Mackay

We catch up with Earth Sciences New Zealand’s (formerly known as Niwa) principal scientist, who has no shortage of weather to talk about!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The weather recently has been anything but true bliss. We've
had so much of it. To tell us away bit
more about it, Chris Braandolino. I was gonna say from
Neewak Chris, but you guys got a new name.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yeah, earth Science is New Zealand. I know it's a
bit lengthier than the word niewa, but yeah, we merged
with GNS as of the first of July, so just
a few days ago, and eventually Met Service comes into
the fold. So kind of creating this all hazard that
this all earth science approach, and honestly it's going to
be a great thing, saying organizations, but better things as

(00:33):
we all come together and work together in a more
collaborative way. Yeah, so that's our name, earth Science is
New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Well you should have just named yourself after one of
my favorite bands, earth Wind and Fire. That would have
done the trick as well. Well. So now you tell
us yeah, okay, Hey, So some of these rainfall numbers,
particularly the likes of in the Marlborough Tasman Nelson region
and obviously Taranaki more recently, how bad is it?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Well, he had quite a drop of rain some locations,
well over two hundred millimeters of rain over the gosh
within a day. In some places seventy eighty millimeters of
rain within a couple of hours. So that caused the
flooding New Plymouth near the mountain itself. Over toward Tasman.
I'm looking at some of the gauges from Tasman District

(01:22):
Council and some of the higher elevations anywhere from seventy
five to one hundred millimeters of rain over the past
day and a half and it's fallen on wet ground.
So this is the reason for the concern. Now, we
still have to be mindful. There will be showers and
maybe some downpours and thunderstorms across the country today, including Tenanaki,
including the top of the South Island, so we have

(01:43):
to keep our eyes on that once today bypasses. Still
kind of an unsettled day. Tomorrow it looks like for
a good chunk of the North Island with showers and
maybe a few thunderstorms, but we'll catch a break, Jamie.
So Sunday, Monday and probably Tuesday largely dry across the country,
a little cooler, particularly eastern parts of the country will

(02:03):
find cooler temperatures. Unfortunately, you can tell about the dramatic pause.
We're gonna be dealing with another weather system coming from
the west and northwest. This will be tapping down that
tropical moisture and it looks like the second half of
next week, so Thursday Friday kind of timeframe. We're looking
at another low with connections to the north and therefore
the risk of heavy rain and Jamie. We issued our

(02:26):
long range outlook or seasonal Climate Outlook just a couple
days ago, and this is a concern we highlighted in
that outlook is for the next three months and July especially,
there is going to be this increased risk for rainfall
events with tropical and subtropical connections. Basically, low pressure is
favored near in northwest of the country. High pressure favored

(02:47):
well to our southeast, and that will sort of facilitate
this north kind of quarterly flow, so it could be
northeast northwest, but that will set us up for a
wet July for much of the country and for the
next three months through the end of September. It's the
northern parts of both islands areas that have been wet
that have the highest risk for having a wetter than

(03:08):
usual three month period, got to watch the west of
the South Island. Dryness could actually emerge there as you
work away through the weeks and months ahead because of
a lack of westerlies. So that is an area we'll
have to watch from I guess Interior or Southland all
the way up to hast hoky Tika and the west
of the South Island. That's where our catchments are too,
So that is something we'll need to watch well.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
I hope the Tasman region in particular get some of
that drawing us over the next month, because I've got
a hell of a tardy up today.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
It doesn't look great, I'll be honest. And the issue
is like the rainfall events that you know, some of
them may be big, some of them may be more pedestrian.
But when the ground gets so wet, I mean it's
already wet now, but you know that continues, then you
get these pedestrians sort of ordinary rainfall events, and they
cause inordinate sort of problems, you know, because the ground
is really moist and wet and the rain has nowhere

(03:57):
to go. So that's sort of the kind of the
one of the things remindful of these kind of compounding
effects over the course of time.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Okay, there we go. I was going to say Chris
Brandoleno from newa Let's try Chris Breandoleno from Earth Sciences,
New Zealand. Earth wind and Fire is easy to say.