What happens when it rains?

It will come as no surprise when we say that the Bay of Plenty has been consistently experiencing above average rainfall – but how wet is wet exactly?

Over the past 12 months, our 60-plus rainfall monitoring sites haven’t recorded less than 50mm of rain each month.

January, February and May have been ones for the record books, with a signi cant increase in rainfall when compared to the same time last year.

For example, one rain gauge at the back of Te Puke (Upper Rangiuru Road) recorded 769mm of rain in January, up from 58mm recorded at the same time last year.

With all this rain, it’s hard to believe we were experiencing periods of drought last summer and facing di erent types of challenges.

But this sort of swing from extreme dry to wet is what is predicted to occur more frequently with climate change, and we can only expect to see more intense, inconsistent weather patterns. Understanding what’s happening in our backyard is a critical component of how we can help communities become resilient in the face of climate change. To do this, we have a robust and responsive network of monitoring sites across the rohe that we use in both realtime (during severe weather) and after an event (for post-