Outlook fine for Fieldays

Outlook fine for Fieldays

Vistors to this week's National Agricultural Fieldays near Hamilton, can expect mostly fine weather.

According to NIWA, official weather forecaster for Fieldays, the best day is likely to be Saturday, and the wettestThursday with temperatures between 13 and 17 degrees C over the four-day event.

NIWA forecaster Chris Brandolino’s will be broadcasting daily weather forecasts on the big screens at Fieldays. In the meantime he says while there may be the odd shower or three on opening day, expect mainly dry conditions through most of Wednesday.

“Widespread showers are likely on Wednesday night as a cold front approaches from the south west. Expect showers for the start of Thursday with improvement likely by afternoon.
“Cooler temperatures along with a threat of showers are expected to end the week with the best chance for dry weather on Saturday,” Mr Brandolino said.

The day by day NIWA forecast is as follows: .

Wednesday: Cloud and limited sun with an odd shower or two possible. High 17 degrees C.

Thursday: Showers likely, mainly during the morning .Some afternoon sun. High 14-15 degrees C.

Friday: Cloud and some sun with scattered showers likely. High 13-14 degrees C.

Saturday: Cloud and sun. Slight chance for an isolated shower. High 13-14 degrees C.

Meanwhile NIWA is in the main pavilion at Fieldays this year demonstrating a new tool that can help farmers decide when to irrigate.

The tool is called NIWA IrriMet and follows the successful launch of FarmMet at last year’s Fieldays.

FarmMet is a tailored weather forecasting tool that provides accurate up-to-date forecasts specific to individual properties. It works by capturing data from climate stations closest to an individual farm and using that to tailor a forecast to farmers delivered straight to their computer.

IrriMet also taps into this same data which is fed in real time to NIWA’s supercomputer, combined with high-resolution weather forecasting and soil information to generate a six-day forecast of soil moisture and leaching potential.

It tells farmers when and how much to irrigate, what the leaching potential is and how overall growth is tracking.

Dr Jochen Schmidt, NIWA’s Chief Scientist Environmental Information, says: “We’ve got the science sorted and we’re now up to working out the best way to translate it into information that will help farmers make better operational decisions.

“We’re looking for farmers from all around New Zealand who irrigate their properties. What we need is help and feedback on our trial product – particularly on how the information is presented.”

ENDS

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