Sunnier, drier spring for much of New Zealand

Niwa's climate summary report for Spring 2015 showed there was abundant sun to go with the mostly drier weather. Photo / iStock

It was a sunnier, drier spring for much of the country.

Niwa's climate summary report for Spring 2015 showed rainfall was well below normal in most parts of the country, barring Gisborne and Hawkes Bay where two heavy rain events pushed the level of rain to 149 per cent above normal.

Wairoa, in Hawkes Bay, had the most rain this spring with a total of 420mm, whereas the highest one-day rainfall was 291mm recorded at Milford Sound on October 16.

There was also abundant sun to go with the mostly drier weather, with 110 to 125 per cent more sun than normal in the Far North, inland Bay of Plenty, southern Waikato, Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury, Otago and Southland.

Record or near-record high sunshine hours for the season were observed in 13 locations, including Lake Tekapo, with 789 sunshine hours - the most since records began in 1928.

The sunniest four locations so far in 2015, to the month ending November 30, were Blenheim with 2519 hours of sunshine, Whakatane with 2476, Appleby with 2456 and Lake Tekapo with 2423 hours.

On the other hand temperatures this spring showed no significant anomalies with the nation-wide average temperature of 12C.

The highest recorded temperature this spring was 31.7C in Hastings on November 26, whereas the lowest was -8.2C in Naseby Forest on October 31.

Of the six main centres this spring, Auckland was the warmest and the cloudiest, Dunedin was the coolest, Christchurch was the driest and the sunniest and Hamilton was the wettest.

Record or near-record spring rainfall totals were recorded at:

Record or near-record spring sunshine hours were recorded at:

Spring 2015 main centre climates: