Gisborne rises in sunshine stakes

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Gisborne’s place in the sun has been given an extra shine with the news the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) has discredited measurements taken at New Plymouth for the past couple of years.

Niwa has dumped that city’s sunshine statistics because of gremlins in a computerised measuring device.

Earlier in the year, Niwa sent the gadget away to be tested because it refused to believe the 20 percent increase in sunshine over the past two years was possible.

Forecaster Chris Brandolino said the device was “over-reading” sunlight on cloudy days.

Mr Brandolino said the government institute would also consider dropping the city’s data for 2013 and 2012 as ?well.

This means Gisborne’s placing in the sunshine stakes, after the intervention of the Niwa stewards, has been elevated from fourth to third.

Whakatane was first to cross the finish line, soaking up 2704 hours of the yellow stuff, New Plymouth has now been disqualified from second place elevating Blenheim to second with 2528 hours and Gisborne third with 2500 hours, setting a new record locally.

The official Niwa record for Gisborne was set back in 1944, when there were 2439 hours of sunshine.

Meanwhile, yesterday continued the current sunny trend, and temperatures again saw people heading to the beach to cool off.

Yesterday’s MetService high was 29 — the highest in the country — while at Makaraka the mercury topped 33-degrees.

Sleepers had some relief last night with a cooler evening and the mercury easing down to 14 degrees by 6am this morning.

Those enjoying activities in or out of the water at the moment have seen the water temperature come up from 18 degrees in the past week or so, to a touch over a very pleasant 22 degrees.

Those still on holiday can look forward to the good weather lasting at least until next week. The MetService is forecasting settled weather for the next five days, and a warm sunny weekend with an expected high of 27 degrees for Sunday.