If you’re planning a visit to the National Agricultural Fieldays at Mystery Creek this week, here’s what you can expect
from the weather.
NIWA, the official forecaster to Fieldays, says the weather is likely to be a mixed bag for the event with Thursday and
Friday looking to be the best days, weather-wise, to visit.
Forecaster Ben Noll says Fieldays 2019 shouldn’t be a washout, with a few showers likely on the Wednesday and Saturday,
and fine weather for Thursday and Friday, albeit with possible morning fog.
NIWA’s daily forecasts:
• Wednesday: Mostly cloudy with rain developing. Max 15. Min 10.
• Thursday: Fog possible early with gradual clearing throughout the day. Max 15. Min 5.
• Friday: Cool with fog possible early, giving way to sunshine. Max 16. Min 9.
• Saturday: Mostly cloudy with showers possible. Max 15. Min 8.
For clean-up day on Sunday, generally dry conditions are favoured with some sunshine.
Mr Noll says it wouldn’t be the National Agricultural Fieldays without a bit of rain. Looking back, rain has fallen in
each of the last five Fieldays events and it was even wet during the first event way back in 1969.
As he says, “Has it rained during Fieldays? 2018 yes, 2017 indeed, 2016 yup, 2015 yeah, and 2014 definitely — in fact
one of the days had a massive 59.8 mm, the 7th highest daily rainfall in June on record in Hamilton. Even the first-ever
Fieldays event in 1969 featured some rain.”
Mr Noll encourages those attending Fieldays to come and visit NIWA’s stand.
“As well as having a chat to us forecasters, visitors to the site may learn something new about the environment or even
have a ‘eureka moment’ about how the individual choices they make can impact the environment.”
At the centre of NIWA’s Fieldays stand are two cylindrical aquarium tanks – one containing native fish and plants in a
good quality freshwater environment; the other, pest fish and plants in a degraded environment.
Visitors can also take a virtual reality experience and through 360°video footage, go diving in the Rotorua lakes with
NIWA scientists as they undertake lake health monitoring.
NIWA is at site PC 39/41.
ends