It was the first time in five days Ophir and Alexandra residents had seen the sun.
Manuherikia Valley, Ida Valley and Fruitlands residents awoke to a hoar frost, with fog decorating the countryside, but the accompanying blue skies put the smiles back on faces.
"Everyone gets a bit grizzly with all those gloomy, foggy days we've had this winter," Ophir resident Sam Leask said.
"But it's nice to finally see the sun and this is our best day for quite a while.
"It's certainly lifted the spirits."
Mr Leask, who records weather details for the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, said Ophir reached 3degC yesterday - its highest temperature in five days.
For the preceding five days the temperature ranged between -0.7 and -1.1, Mr Leask said.
The ground frosts varied from 3.4 to 6.3 degrees.
The hardest frost so far this winter was 7.9 degrees on Friday, June 19, but that pales into insignificance when compared with Ophir's record frost of 21.7 degrees in 1995.
Alexandra has had a colder than average June, with more frosts than was usual.
Alexandra resident John Douglas has kept weather details for the past 10 years, for his own interest, and said that on six days this month, maximum temperatures had ranged from 0.5degC to 2.4degC.
The average day temperature was almost 6degC, compared with 12degC last June.
There had been frosts 26 days this month and not many "clear skies", so yesterday's sun was a bonus.
"It was exciting to see the sun and a real morale booster after what's been an exceptionally cool month," Mr Douglas said.
Most of Butchers Dam, near Alexandra, was frozen over yesterday, with a layer of frozen snow giving it a white coating.
