The regional council report said this could collapse Wairarapa agriculture, causing economic and social stress, raising wildfire risk, and triggering full activation of regional emergency management.<\/p>\n
It said current guidance suggested the event may be \u201cintense but relatively short-lived\u201d, weakening during the second half of summer and potentially ending by winter 2027.<\/p>\n
Council director for knowledge and insights Dave Hipkins said the current forecast indicated \u201cit\u2019s going to be one of the strongest events on record\u201d and the highest drought risk was expected this summer.<\/p>\n
El Ni\u00f1o, and its opposite, La Ni\u00f1a, are naturally occurring climate patterns.<\/p>\n
El Ni\u00f1o occurs when the surface water in the equatorial Pacific Ocean gets unusually warm, disrupting global and local weather.<\/p>\n
Typically, it occurs every few years and lasts for several months.<\/p>\n
Past events in 1972-1973, 1982-1983, and 1997-1998 caused severe droughts in eastern parts of the country.<\/p>\n
Greater Wellington Wairarapa councillor John Hart said he was concerned some farmers, particularly in the Wairarapa coast catchment, could be heading into \u201cwhat could be a serious drought with a deficit of on-farm water infrastructure, if farm dams that were damaged by this year\u2019s extreme weather events haven\u2019t had a chance to be repaired yet\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve asked Greater Wellington staff to look at surveying farmers to see if they need assistance, but if they have compliance concerns about getting work done, I\u2019d urge them to get in touch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe welfare of farmers and their livestock is our priority concern right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hart said the farmers he had spoken to were not panicking yet, \u201cbut they are starting to make plans to adapt if the drought eventuates\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Greater Wellington Regional Council report said current soil moisture and water resources across the region remained generally healthy following a wet autumn and early winter.<\/p>\n
The council will continue to engage proactively with water users and landowners, ensure regulatory readiness, and prepare operational activities within parks and catchments for elevated fire and drought conditions.<\/p>\n
– LDR is local body journalism funded by RNZ and NZ on Air<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The regional council report said this could collapse Wairarapa agriculture, causing economic and social stress, raising wildfire risk,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[4492,95,682,8278,130973,23436,49062,83585,273,3685,12967,60508,71,111,139,192804,69,1118,60725,42562,13084,1974,147,2848,48782,6100,14166,1961,62,8222,4998,379],"class_list":["post-603800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-advised","tag-and","tag-being","tag-conditions","tag-driest","tag-drought","tag-dry","tag-el","tag-environment","tag-events","tag-farmers","tag-feed","tag-from","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nio","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-picking","tag-pieces","tag-prepare","tag-record","tag-science","tag-severe","tag-shortages","tag-still","tag-summers","tag-this","tag-wairarapa","tag-warned","tag-weather","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}