The Country 31/10/25: Chris Brandolino talks to Jamie Mackay

It’s Halloween, and our US-born weatherman from Earth Sciences New Zealand kicks off the show to discuss some very scary stuff!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Weather on the country with farmlands, with clothing to keep
you cool, dry and protected this summer. Chris Brandelli and
I was Newa was Newa used to be Newa your
eth sciences. New Zealand was Hallaway in a big deal
when you were growing up as a kid.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Oh it was big. Yeah, I mean it. It was
a lot of fun, trick or treating, you know, dressing up.
I'm not much of a dress up person, but yeah, yes,
it's the short answer.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Well, it's bled if that's the word. It's white in
New Zealand culture. I think it's just slightly crissy commercial.
But maybe I'm a Maybe I'm a bit like Winston.
Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man and I'm barking.
I'm barking at clouds. Is it barking at clouds? Yelling
at clouds?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Well, either one barking or yelling. You're allowed to bark
and yell.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
That is.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
I mean, if you want to bark and yellow at clouds, Jamie,
who am I to tell you that you're wrong? You know,
whatever makes you happy, buddy.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Well, I reckon. There's a lot of farmers at the
moment who are yelling at every time. One comes over,
and especially if they come over too quickly, because that
means there's wind driving them. We chatted to you last
Thursday on the country, just on the eve you were
warning about what the winds might do, and it came true.
But the interesting thing was they came through lower then

(01:20):
perhaps we were expecting.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Well, it depends on where you were. For the folks
in Southland and parts of Donna, you're neck of the woods,
you know, Otago, lower Otago. Certainly that sting Jet I think,
as we mentioned, did come through and did a real number.
I think North Canterbury did really bad as well, but
other areas perhaps certainly, you know, not as bad. So
it wasn't it wasn't right the way through Canterbury, that's

(01:43):
for sure. But nonetheless it's been a very active spring
with a lot of wind, a lot of rain on
the western part of the South Island, not enough rain
for eastern parts of the North Island. In fact, my
Steam colleague Chester, he just I guess print or printed
I say, he just issued and wrote up our latest
hot spot report. So look for that on the website

(02:03):
to kind of talk about where dryness is and what
the outlook is for the next week in terms of rainfall,
not a lot of rain, Jamie. I'm just kind of
stealing his thunder. There will be a few spotty showers,
maybe an odd downpour tomorrow across the central North Island
from the Rakumeras over toward Torof at the Gizbit and
toward the Central Plateau and Waikato. A bit of rain

(02:25):
potentially there, but not a lot of rain, you know.
If I'm basically adding up the rain drops between now
and when we say next Thursday, it's going to be
the western South Island that sees the most. But even
there we're talking maybe twenty thirty forty millimeters of rain
at most, very little if any for the eastern part
of Boat Islands. So not much rain through say Thursday

(02:47):
of next week. Things will change. We'll maybe see a
threat for showers, maybe some downpours as we get toward
the end of next week. And I do want to
let people know that it is going to turn quite warm.
So at the moment we have a bit of a
chili that we're sort of dealing with the tail end, Jamie.
But I do think as we work away through the weekend,
and especially as we arrive into next week, we are

(03:10):
going to shift to a more decidedly warm weather pattern
for much of the country and I do think as
we're you know, basically through the maybe second week of November,
unusual warmth is going to be a theme for much
of New Zealand as our airflow is expected the north
to northwest as a whole in broad strokes, well, I.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Think that'll be welcome by a lot of farmers, a
bit of an improvement and temperatures. Chris Brandolina, thanks very
much for you Tom, and enjoy Halloween with the family.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Well, buddy, you'd be good, say