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Five-year drought after all?

PA. Wellington The Forest Service is taking seriously a prediction that New Zealand may have entered a five-year dry speH. In 1980, Mr A. I. Tomlinson, who is now chief meteorologist at the Christchurch weather office, predicted that rainfall would be below average in many areas for quite long periods from 1981 to about 1986. He made the prediction after studying the rainfall pattern of several decades and relating it to the solar cycle.. The Forest Service’s chief fire control officer, Mr Neill Cooper, said that he had not taken much notice of ..the prediction at first) but after last year’s fire in the Hira forest, Nelson, he had "started looking at this thing a bit more closely.” Mr Cooper said that 1981 could well have been the first year of Mr Tomlinson’s prediction coming true. Mr Cooper said that he had advised Forest Service district offices that New Zealand could be entering the second year of a drought cycle. Already this season about 165 fires had. been reported in State forests..

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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19820309.2.3

Bibliographic details

Press, 9 March 1982, Page 1

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176

Five-year drought after all? Press, 9 March 1982, Page 1

Five-year drought after all? Press, 9 March 1982, Page 1