It was a chilly but very sunny March for Otago.
While the North Island battled very wet and windy conditions, Otago and Southland were lucky enough to miss the worst of it and Balclutha broke a couple of March records.
Niwa climate scientist Georgina Griffiths said higher pressures than usual to the east of the Chatham Islands and more lows than normal to the north of the North Island produced more easterly winds than usual over the country.
"The frequent easterly winds resulted in an extremely cool March for eastern areas of both islands," she said in the March national climate summary.
The effect of the prevailing easterly winds during March was evident in the sunshine totals, with Balclutha recording its highest March hours, 209, Dunedin its second-highest, 198, and Invercargill its third-highest, 181.
Dunedin's sunshine hours were second only to Tauranga's, which were 216, the highest in the country.
Mean temperatures were well below average for much of the south and east of the South Island, she said.
Balclutha recorded a record-low minimum temperature of 5.2degC, 3.1degC lower than normal, while Dunedin airport and Cromwell recorded second-lowest minimums of 5degC, 2.3degC lower than normal, and 5.8degC, 2.4degC lower than normal, respectively.
Queenstown recorded its third-lowest minimum of 5.6degC, 1.8degC less than normal.
Dunedin was also the coolest of the six main centres with a mean temperature of only 12.5degC, 1.3degC lower than normal and its fourth-lowest on record. It was also a degree cooler than Christchurch, nearly two degrees lower than Wellington and nearly six degrees lower than Tauranga.
The city's rainfall at 65mm was 94% of normal.
In comparison, 39mm fell in Christchurch and 155mm fell in Wellington.
On March 11, Alexandra had 34mm of rain, its third-highest one-day total since records began.
