Dunedin coldest and least sunny city

Dunedin was the coldest and least sunny main centre in 2020.

Niwa’s 2020 summary showed New Zealand had its seventh-warmest year on record — continuing a climate change trend that has put six of our last eight years among the hottest ever recorded.

Niwa noted that it had been 47 months since New Zealand last experienced below-average temperatures.

Of the six main centres in 2020, Auckland was the warmest, Dunedin was the coolest, Wellington was the wettest, Christchurch was the driest, Tauranga was the sunniest and Dunedin was the least sunny.

The coldest temperature of the year of -12.3degC was recorded in Middlemarch on June 14.

The highest air temperature of the year of 38.2degC was recorded in Gisborne on January 31.

The country’s nationwide average temperature for the year, calculated off the 110-year-old seven-station temperature series, came in at 13.24degC, which was 0.63degC above the 1981-2010 annual average - and not too far below New Zealand’s warmest year, 2016, when the average was 13.45degC.

Comments

No surprise there!