Council currently monitors rainfall at 27 sites and this data is supplemented by several rainfall monitoring stations operated by NIWA, the Marlborough Research Centre, and Fire & Emergency New Zealand (FENZ). Some of these have more than 30 years of data available, said Ms Tomlinson.
A new rainfall record was also set for Blenheim.
“July 2022 was the wettest month in 93 years for Blenheim with 220mm of rain received. This was also the first-time monthly rainfall has exceeded 200 mm in the town.”
“August 2022 was also the first month where more than one metre of rainfall was recorded at a monitoring site in Marlborough, with 1,241 mm recorded at Tunakino in the Rai Valley,” said Ms Tomlinson.
Kenepuru Heads in the Marlborough Sounds also had significantly more rain than usual – receiving 2.8 metres for the year instead of the average 1.7 metres.
Overall, winter 2022 had the highest rainfall of any season at 12 out of the fourteen long-term monitoring sites. The oldest of these is Wairau Valley at Southwold, which was established more than one hundred years ago, and a site at Linkwater which has been recording rainfall since 1938.
The 2022/23 hydrological year – which runs from 1 July to 30 June - had between 20 and 60% more rainfall than average across the entire region.
