Lay of the land

Soils are unusually wet in some parts of the South, a meteorologist says. Niwa forecaster Ben Noll said data showed for some parts of the South had had up to 400% of their normal September rainfall. Wetter than normal places include Five Rivers in Northern Southland, Clyde in Central Otago and Manapouri in Western Southland. Manapouri had 166 mm of rain on September 1, 44% of its normal rainfall  for the month. Shawn McAvinue called farmers last week to ask how wet it was on their farms.

Sheep and beef farmer Chris Douglas, of The Key, east of Manapouri ... "It can’t get any wetter. In the 40 years I’ve been here I haven’t seen it this wet at this time of the year for such a long period. I’d say we got 300mm in three weeks and our normal annual rainfall is only 1000mm. We are right in the middle of calving for the stud and we are getting through it but we are working hard."

Sheep and beef farmer Andrew Law, of Castlerock, south of Five Rivers in Northern Southland ... "It is as wet as it has been for a while and far from ideal lambing conditions. It is pretty terrible to be fair."

Sheep and deer farmer Andrew Preston, of Galloway, east of Clyde in Central Otago ... "It is pretty wet. We have had 50mm in the last week and quite a bit of snow so there’s a lot of water coming down gullies. We haven’t started lambing and it won’t worry us too much, as there’s plenty of rocky country. In some ways this is good because we will probably get a spring. At least we’ll have a bit of moisture in the ground."