The Country 12/12/25: Chris Brandolino talks to Jamie Mackay

Friday’s Weather Guy, and native New Yorker, on the dry in New Zealand and his favourite American President.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Whether on the country with farmlands helping to prevent parasite
outbreaks this summer, Chris Brandolina, has Trump ruined the song
for you?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Or is he?

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Are you more fond of the song?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'll try to stay politically neutral here.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Well, hey, Chris, I want to remind you that might
pay to stay politically neutral, because otherwise you won't be
able to go back home. Well.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
No, look, I hold two passports, so I mean I'm
I'm a US born citizen. So I hopefully that has
become a problem. If it becomes a problem, boy, we're
in deep doo doo.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Well he might. He might be checking out some of
your comments. You've made disparaging comments about President Trump on
the country.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Well, for first, I've never made disparaging comments.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Oh that might have been me anyhow.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, yeah, well I'm all right.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
I look, I'm getting it from all sides. At the moment,
I had an American.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
I'm not the only one.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
I had an American climate change denial on the show midweek,
and I got used to being a Labor Party member,
and then the fire right accused me of something else.
You just can't win, But never mind. Luckily, luckily I've
got a thick skin. More importantly for the farmers listening,
it's not unusual for the east coasts of both islands
to have summer dry periods. Is it getting worse or

(01:20):
there has been some relieving rain?

Speaker 2 (01:23):
There has been. In fact, we literally just issued our
hotspot report. I know we've talked about this before, but
that is probably the best and most comprehensive. It's a
five minute read, not even so you can read it,
you know, when you're on the toilet with your phone,
not that I do that, of course, and and just
have a quick read and understand where the dryness is
and what the projections are. Now look if for a

(01:45):
short on time and maybe you don't have a chance
to read it, I can tell you that it's not
going to rain much over the next five days, maybe
probably not till Tuesday. So over the next four to
six days it is going to be quite dry over
pretty much the entire North Island and the eastern southbound.
There will be raining for the western South Island as
another front moves north that will make its way and

(02:06):
probably impact the Waikato, Tedanaki, North London, Auckland and in
the Lower North Island too. Probably late Tuesday, especially Wednesday,
but that may be the only rain we see for
a little bit. We're going to We're gonna be watching
later in the period as to get into well the
next week. So this time next week, the nineteenth, Jamie,

(02:27):
we're gonna be watching for a cutoff low. So a
cutoff low basically is cut off from the main jet stream.
And when we get these cutoff lows, they can produce
stagnant weather, and depending where you are relative to that
cutoff system, you can find extended periods of settled weather
or extended periods of unsettled weather. We'll have to see
what happens, but there is a reality where we could

(02:48):
see parts of New Zealand getting into some extended unsettled
weather late next week into early next weekend, and then
as we get toward Christmas, there are some indications that
will have a warm for much of the country. It's
really unclear we're going to be in that settled or
unsettled period. It depends, Jamie, on what happens with that
cut off low, because or cut off low is because

(03:10):
the modeling is all over the map. I'm not gonna lie.
There's a lot of uncertainty, but I do think there
will be a warm lean, especially for the North Island.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Okay, Chris, Well, let you go, and I might play
away bit of YMCI just for your favorite president. I'll
tell you what.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
I'm my favorite president. One of my favorite presidents is
Woodrow Wilson.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Well, now I'm ready. Now I read because I am
fascinated by American politics. That of all the American presidents
and what Trump is this is he's number forty seven,
I think this time. Admittedly he's a repeat offender, but
of all the American presidents, Woodrow Wilson had the highest IQ.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah. He created the League of Nations, was a precursor
to the UN. Yeah he was. He was a really
in Kennedy. I really like Kennedy. He thought he did
a good job navigating the Bay of Islands crisis, the
miss the Russian missile crisis. I should say, yeah, I
could talk on forever, but I won't.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Hear Well, I like Kennedy. Well, I also liked Reagan.
Didn't mind Bill Clinton his personal issues aside, and I
didn't mind Obama either. But Reagan, Reagan, the Republican was
the great communicator, wasn't he?

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (04:20):
He was?

Speaker 2 (04:21):
And you know, I'm not a Reagan fan. I don't
believe in uh, you know, and trickle down economy personally.
But he had a great, great line when it came
to the Soviets, and I've used it for other facets
of late that and that is trust but verify, And
I think that's something that I've used in my left.
You can trust someone, but you know what we're gonna
follow up into double check, you know, just keep people honest.

(04:41):
So that was his life and he was an actor.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
He was a big ride actor. As he famously said,
mister Gorbachev, tear down that wall. Gotta go, Chris Chair
down that wall. Yeah right, okay say it