Swathes of a Northland dairy farm have been left underwater after unrelenting downpours this week.
Some paddocks on Jesse Bagley's 700-hectare Kaitaia farm now resemble lakes after days of heavy rain.
One paddock is usually used to graze around 1100 cows, but Bagley told Breakfast it will probably be out of action for two weeks or more given it's underwater.
Once the water recedes, the damage to the grass will be revealed, he said.
Bagley said the past week had been "pretty hectic" thanks to wild weather around the country which took out power and closed roads.
He had constantly been moving cows out of the water and to higher ground.
With the weather easing, Bagley said the struggle now is feeding his cows.
He said he'd "definitely" be taking a big hit, courtesy of the weather.
Kaitaia dairy farmer Jesse Bagley looking at his lake of a paddock. (Source: 1News)
"We don't have the food on-hand on the farm that we should because we had such a dry autumn and had to feed a lot of feed then. We're going to have to buy more food, essentially."
With calving starting in about four days, Bagley said the only thing he can do is buy more food.
Farming in Northland for the past three years, Bagley said this week's weather was "definitely" the worst he's seen.
"Two-hundred-and-forty millimetres in the last five days is quite a lot of water."
MetService meteorologist David Miller told 1News Kaitaia Airport had seen 90mm fall this week.
For July so far, there has been 196mm, which Miller described as "quite a lot".
Meanwhile, Kerikeri had received "well over" its July average to date. Miller said the town had had 268mm so far in July and the average is normally 180mm.
In Whangārei, 144mm had fallen so far in July and the average is normally 141mm. Miller remarked the city had received "a month's worth of rain in two weeks".
© TVNZ 2022