The Country 29/08/25: Chris Brandolino talks to Jamie Mackay

The weatherman from Earth Sciences NZ talks about NIWA 35 and how to apply it to the most important month on the farming calendar.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
But let's take it off with Chris Brendolino from Newa.
Now it was called new thirty five. Chris, what do
you call it now? Earth science is thirty five? Good
after nine?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Oh, good afternoon, Jammy, Nice to chat with you. No,
I think we're going to call it something to the
effect of en Z sub nz S two s or
enzed thirty five basically to you know, because we're not
Newa anymore. But I forget the acronym, so I'll have
to look that up. So action on me is to

(00:34):
confirm the likely change and abbreviation because of our name change.
But look, call whatever you want. What it is is
a theme outlook for the next thirty five days. Now. Look,
I know people, particularly farmers are probably thinking, right, you
guys can't get it right three days from now, which
is not really fair. But you can't get it right free.
How going to get it right thirty five days from now?

(00:56):
So this has been around for a few years. We
developed it with MPI, and it's actually a blend of
traditional weather modeling and AI. So it's a blend of
those two sort of disciplines or sciences, and we're what
we're doing is we're predicting rainfall themes at weekly chunks.
So what you can do if you're in front of
your computer, just type in NIWA for now and NIA

(01:19):
thirty five, So Nia thirty five, the number three five
into Uncle Google and you'll be directed to where that's
at and what you'll see is a few options. And
basically you can look at the thirty five day chunk,
or it can look at individual weeks, and these themes
tell us which weeks may be wetter than usual, which
may be drier than usual, or which may be kind

(01:39):
of near normal for the time of year. And this
is something we It's updated every afternoon, so I would
encourage people, you know, not just to look at it
once a week, then look at it a week later,
because it does change, so you want to look at
it with some regularity to give a sense of what's
coming down the pike. Again, these themes two weeks, three weeks,
four weeks out and the theme I can tell you

(02:00):
and this wouldn't show it. This is separate to that
is wind. So we're going to find wind man for
the next probably few weeks. Strong westerlies, these episodes of
strong westerly winds, and that's going to favor areas on
the west of both islands for getting rain. Particularly the
west of the South Island has been a lot of rain.

(02:21):
We've had a lot of east or southeasterlies or north
northeasterlies this winter and that's going to change, at least
for the next few weeks, Jamie.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Nothing unusual though. That is a typical spring wind, a
patent unsettled, changeable windy.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, very windy. And this weekend we could find and
we're going to find with that, changeable days of chili temperatures.
But next week I think we'll find some pretty good changes.
We'll find temperatures warming up. So after a bit of
a cool snap this weekend, particularly for the South Island,
it warms up next week, particularly for the North Island,
and with those changes will come wind. I think the

(02:57):
west of the South Island is likely to see a
wet as we progress through spring. Now I'm speaking out
of school here, speaking out of turn, because on Monday
we're going to be sitting down and assembling our spring
outlook and we will be releasing that on Tuesday. So
I don't want to go too far out in the horizon,
but we still have Linina emerging as a climate driver.

(03:20):
So a climate driver basically is who's going to be
influencing our weather from a climate and weather perspective. And
when we see this coming, it kind of sets the
stage for what weather events are more likely, kind of
loads the dice for certain outcomes, and those outcomes will
be eventually dryness for the South Island, particularly interior, lower

(03:42):
and western South Island. Again, this is longer term, this
is not September, and for the upper and eastern North
Island it does increase the odds for big rainfall events.
But every Lininia is different, Jamie, as we know, Look,
we know the average outcome of Lia Nina, but no
La Ninia's average, So there will be variability differences and
we'll get into that more perhaps when we talk next

(04:03):
week about what we can expect for the spring season
as a whole.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
In the meantime, before you can figure out what the
acronym is, go to Uncle Google, as Chris said, and
type and knee with thirty five and see what the
rainfall and dryness either or might be for your region. Chris,
thanks as always for your time.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
My pleasure, Jammie, and hey, happy end of winter. We
got through it. Buddy, Spring comes on Monday. Can't wait
for it?

Speaker 1 (04:29):
No, well, actually that is the question. Does it come
on Monday or does it come at this spring equinox?
You just a yes?

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Or now? Look, look, i'm season, I'm season non binary.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
We don't do that on the country. There we go,
Chris Brandolino