the state of our environment | January 2015

It was a fabulous start to the year if you like your weather warm and dry. I could count the number of rain days on one hand at many of our rainfall sites and when I say ‘rain days’, that includes days with a mere flick of a shower. So you might be astounded to know that we had near normal January rainfall… around Tangoio. Elsewhere it was well below normal and reached only a third of normal totals in Central Hawke’s Bay and our southern coastal region. We had sunshine to burn, which helped to generate a few heavy heat showers in places, and day after day of northeast sea breezes (see the Bridge Pa wind rose for January below) thanks to anticyclones and a mostly northeast flow over the country. So if you took advantage of the hotter than usual January temperatures and splashed about in popular swimming spots, you might have noticed river levels being lower than usual and, with both groundwater and soil moistures levels also on the low side, the surrounding hillsides looking a touch brown. But if you’re missing some ‘greenness’, take a look at our water quality report, it’s awash with it – green for good that is!

20150204_HBRC_SOE_January_2015.pdf

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