While he has seen some pretty wet summers they usually involved ''short, sharp'' downpours leading to floods, such as the widespread Taieri floods in 1980.
''That came down in a wallop,'' Mr Bradley said.
That contrasted sharply with the overcast and cool nature of this summer, he said.
It had topped off a ''funny year'' for weather, which had shown up in his and his neighbours' gardens.
''This year everything got a good start, then froze. Then they took off. It's been very off again, on again.''
However, he was predicting an ''Indian summer'' with a good run of weather right until May.
Balaclava also did not get the same number of frosts it used to, Mr Bradley said.
Overall, he believed the weather came in cycles and at 76 years old he was on his third weather cycle.
''To me, the biggest thing is you cannot rely on the weather any time, at all.''
One benefit to living in Dunedin was the lack of climatic extremes, so in most years rainfall came in even bursts throughout the year and the temperature range was not great.
Mr Bradley marks the cycles by major snow events - the first he can remember was during World War 2 in Timaru when ''18 inches of snow up to my knees'' fell. The second was in 1972 when he was in Clandeboye.
