The Country 21/11/25: Chris Brandolino talks to Jamie Mackay

Friday's Weather Guy from Earth Sciences NZ talks about the impending big dry on the east coasts of both islands.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Weather on the country with farm lands helping to prevent
parasite outbreaks this summer. That is twenty seven away from
twelve away from one thirty two after twelve Stop laughing, Michelle, right,
Chris Brandel, there's only one ic DC song we could

(00:20):
play into a way the main and we had a thunderstruck.
Chris Brendolino from Earth Sciences, New Zealand, the artist formerly
known as Neighbor. Good afternoon, how are you.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm well, I you know, I lived in Perth for
a couple of years and you know I worked for
the Beer Meteorology and one time the kids were quite young,
we took a trip to Fremantle and there's a statue
of Bond Scott there and I'll never forget. You know,
this is a Saturday morning, must have been like ten
thirty eleven o'clock something like that, and we got to
check it out because he has PRIP connections, and you know,

(00:52):
there was a couple guys passed out, you know, just
sleeping by this statue and you can only imagine the
scene maybe like eight hours ago, four o'clock in the morning,
but these guys were clearly had were over served and
spent the night, you know, sleeping it off and then
well to the morning.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
So yeah, wow, pilgrimage to the light, great bond Scott. Yeah,
I'm looking at the your new word drought index map.
And I said to you when I was teeing up
in the commercial break the One Day Cricket International didn't
do much even though it shortened the game to break
the drought and Hawks Bay and you correct and you

(01:30):
corrected me as a pedantic where the man would you said,
it's not a drought.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, look, I mean you can still have drought like impacts,
so I don't certainly want to discount what farmers may
be experiencing on you know, on farm or you know,
on the paddock. But when you look at the index,
just you know, from a science perspective, we're on a
cusp of drought for sure, eastern part of Hawk's Bay
and in conditions that will be qualified as extremely dry

(01:55):
or very dry and just a shameless plug. My Steam
colleague Chester yesterday wrote the Hotspot Report. It's on our
website and this talks about you know, where the dryness
is and how that dryna is expected to behave by
way of rainfall is it's going to get better. Is
it going to get worse over the next week. So
you can have a read at that. But if maybe
you're too busy to do that, we can give you

(02:16):
a little play by play. I can tell you this.
It's darn hot right now in parts of the eastern
South Island. Christ Church over thirty degrees right now and
Chevy also more than thirty degrees right now. So it's
a very hot day and places in Hawks Bay are
expected to reach, if not reach thirty, maybe exceed it.
So very warm to hot conditions today across eastern parts

(02:38):
of the country.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Chris, it's Friday. When we check to you here on
the country. I am looking at drought Indix map. It's
a really good indicator. Albeit this one it's always a
few days behind because they've got to get the information.
This is dated the eighteenth and November, so that's three
days off the pace. But that yellow is starting to
creep up up to the Gisbon Eest Coast region down

(02:59):
through the World Wararepa, Marlborough into North Canterbury down the
crosst Church.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yes, that's right, and unfortunately when I look at the
expected rainfall, say over the next ten days. Look, it's
not a lot for those areas still be some rain,
but unfortunately the areas that need the rain over the
next seven to ten days aren't to get much. And
one thing that's really important, Jamie, this is really important,
and I no farmers know this, but I'll say it anyway.

(03:27):
This time of the year, it's all about budget. We're
losing moisture pretty rapidly, especially when there's any when there's
any wind. So when I look at what's called the
potential Evapo transporation PET, basically over the past fifteen days
roughly two weeks, those same areas eastern the upper eastern
South Island and much of the eastern North Island have

(03:50):
lost between eighty and ninety millimeters of rain over the
past or moisture, I should say, over the past couple
of weeks, and over the past five days some places twenty.
So that's five millimeters a day. So even if it
rains two millimeters or three millimeters, they're still in deficit.
So this is the time of the year when we're
basically spending more than we're making in that budget, and

(04:12):
unfortunately we're not going to see a lot of rain
in areas that need it. Over the next ten to
fourteen days, it'll rain some, but not where we need it.
It's going to be the west of the South Island,
so that's where there will be some episodes of rain
over the coming ten days or so.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Hi, Chris Brandolina, I always appreciate your contribution here on
the country on a Friday.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
You have a good weekend you too, sir. Thank you