A DRY MONTH.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 11 April 1939, Page 7

A DRY MONTH.

NOTES ON MARCH WEATHER General: March was a mild month with little wind and about the average amount of sunshine. Droughty conditions prevailed throughout the greatest part of the month in most districtsOwing to the preceding two months having been dry, conditions are now serious. In many places there is a shortage of water and, except in a few areas, pastures have been depleted and little growth is taking place. Small crops have done very poorly and in many cases autumn sowings have been impossible. The problem of winter feed for stock is causing grave anxiety, especially since even if rain comes soon it will, in many cases, be too late for much growth to be produced. Though they are beginning to feel the pinch, the condition of stock is not generally bad; lambs are, in many cases, still doing well. The milk yield has declined seriously. The drought appears to b 4 most acute in the Auckland, Marlborough and Nelson Provinces. Parts of Canterbury, Otago and Southland, and the high levels in the North Island, have not fared badly. White butterflies have become rather plentiful, but conditions have been unfavourable for most pests. Rainfall: According to present reports, rainfall was well below average in all districts. Probably in no previous month has the shortage of rainfall been so universal. The North Island received approximately only a quarter of the average fall. Numbers of places reported the driest March on record, [and at Kaipara Heads there was no I rain at all. Parts of the South Taranaki Bight area fared better than the remainder of the North Island. South of Nelson and Marlborough the rain shortage ranged, generally, between 20 and 50 per cent. Temperatures: Temperatures were everywhere above normal. The departures were not large, the average being under IT degrees. Conditions were very uniform and there was an absence of extreme temperatures. There were few frosts, and such as occured were light. Sunshine: The distribution of sun shine was rather variable, some places having considerably more and some considerably less than normal. On the whole it was a fairly average month. Nelson had 246.1, Napier 235.4, and Blenheim 227.8 hours.

Storm Systems: The month was char* acterized by almost continuous high pressure and anticyclonie conditions. In only a very few years previously has the average pressure for March been so high. Disturbances which were quite vigorous over Australia or the Tasman Sea became in every case very feeble before reaching New Zealand. When fronts crossed the Dominion they were generally oriented in an approximately west to east direction, which is the least favourable for rain. Southerly winds changes swept northward over the country on several occasions without producing rains of any consequence. Fogs were again rather numerous. The only depression to produce very widespread rain was one which began as a small but deep cyclone on the south coast of Queensland on the 6th. After moving onto the Central Tasman Sea by the Bth it gradually filled up but by the 12th it had produced general rain. The amount recorded was surprising and most of it far in advance of the centre of the depression. There was many heavy falls south of Nelson and Marlborough in the South Island, and in Wellington, also, there were some good totals. Elsewhere they were mainly light. These rains came at a critical period and, for the time being, the drought appeared to be broken. After another long fine spell, a deep depression was located over the Central Tasman Sea on the 24th. It was of the type which had been causing droughtbreaking rains in successively more eastward parts of Australia and the prospects for rain in the Dominion seemed very favourable. For four days storms raged in the Tasman Sea, with strong southerly gales in the western portion. From the 26th, however, pressure began to fall in southern New Zealand under the influence of some distant disturbance to the southward. By the 28th pressure became quite low in

southern districts. But so far as rain was concerned the Dominion fell between two stools. From the night of the 28th to the morning of the 29th pressure rose rapidly, the storm in the Tasman Sea, which by this time was moving northward, was swept away, and though a strong, cold southerly wind traversed the country it produced extremely little rain. This was a great disappointment. Thereafter, a very dry type of weather again set in.