In the period from Christmas Eve to January 1, when most of us are on holiday, sunshine was a rare occurrence in the South.
In Dunedin, on New Year’s Eve there was just 90 minutes of sunshine throughout the day and it was under three hours for each of the previous two days.
The average hours of sunshine for the nine-day period in Dunedin was five, more than an hour below the long-term average.
It also rained on seven of the nine days in Dunedin.
Earth Sciences NZ meteorologist Chester Lampkin said cloud had come from various fronts, many from the west
and southwest.
A tropical storm in the North Island, which had brought a lot of rain to the top of the North Island, led to cloud drifting to the south of the South Island.
Things were slightly more promising in Alexandra, which was just above the long-term average for sunshine hours though there was just over four hours of sunshine on December 30. It rained on only three of the nine days but temperatures were not overly high.
Further to the west, it was far from sunstroke territory in Queenstown.
MetService recorded just 1.6 sunshine hours on Christmas Day, New Year’s Day had 3.8 hours and there was just over an hour on January 2.
But step forward Invercargill. Keith Richards was wrong, well for the past few days anyway.
On December 27, Earth Sciences NZ recorded nearly 14 hours of sunshine in the city and nearly 12 hours the following day.
As for the rest of the week, things are picking up for the next couple of days in the South. There may be the odd shower about on Thursday and Friday but otherwise it is mainly fine.
But MetService meteorologist Alanna Burrows said unfortunately it was set to be wet and windy over the weekend.
