It was a warm year for Tauranga in 2016, with every month recording higher than normal temperatures and one month breaking a 103-year record.
According to Niwa, the city's hottest day was January 28, which recorded a temperature of 29.6C, but the hottest overall month was February, with an average temperature of 21.7C.
In May, the temperature was well above normal at a mean 15.6C, which was 2.3C higher than the previous recorded average and the highest mean temperature for May in Tauranga since records began in 1913.
The wettest day of the year was March 17, which recorded rainfall of 71mm out of a total of 145mm for the month.
The wettest month overall was September, in which 166mm of rain fell.
The coldest temperature was -0.4C recorded on August 8, while July and August were jointly the coldest months overall with an average temperature of 11C.
On June 21, Tauranga had its warmest winter solstice night on record, dropping to a balmy 16.5C.
Tauranga had a cloudy and wet February with 168 per cent of normal rainfall recorded, which also meant Tauranga observed its lowest February sunshine hours since records began in 1933.
Other notable weather events last year included heavy rainfall in the Bay of Plenty on June 23, which led to surface flooding which upset motorists and farmers. Some motorists were forced to push their vehicles through the floodwater, which was most significant at Whakatane and Pukehina.
On July 8, State Highway 2 north of Katikati was closed due to flooding and Pongakawa was left without power on July 14 after strong wind damaged power lines.
On November 7, a tornado was reported in Katikati, one of several small tornadoes across the Bay of Plenty.
MetService forecaster Tuporo Marsters said the warmer weather in Tauranga was due to a strong El Nino phase throughout the year.
In an El Nino phase, the east coast of New Zealand tended to have drier than usual conditions.
Mr Marsters said he was unable to give a long-range prediction for 2017 weather, though MetService provided a month-by-month outlook.
The outlook for this month was drier than normal conditions for the north and east of the North Island.
Niwa spokespeople would not comment ahead of the release of their annual report of 2016 weather on Monday.