Whakatane mayor Tony Bonne is regretting "canning up" all of the town's sunshine after coming third behind Nelson and Tekapo in the sunniest town stakes for 2011.
Whakatane's quest to become known as New Zealand's sunniest town has been riddled with speed bumps, with accusations of faulty equipment causing the town to be disqualified two years in a row.
After finally achieving the "Sunniest town in New Zealand" title in 2010, runner-up Nelson awarded the mayor a sun hat - although made sure to point out it was just a loan.
Mr Bonne would be visiting the new sunshine capital next weekend while on holiday and will be meeting up with Nelson mayor Aldo Miccio to return the sun hat.
"I know what went wrong - we canned up a hell of a lot of sunshine and just took too much. We will win the hat back next year, but we are still the sunshine capital of the North Island," he said.
Mr Bonne said although Whakatane was the official winner for only one year, he believed the town should have taken out the crown the previous two years as well.
"Niwa believed [in 2008] that our readings were too good to be true, although there was no fault in the equipment. We will happily pass the title over for a year, but we're getting it back."
Niwa principal scientist Dr James Renwick said the Bay of Plenty in general had a lot of cloudy days last year, so centres in the region had all recorded sunshine hours below their usual percentages.
Dr Renwick said with 157 per cent of normal rainfall recorded in Whakatane, it was no surprise the readings were almost 200 hours less than last year.
"[Whakatane] is one of the sunniest places in New Zealand, although maybe not last year. It is normally one of the small group of top contenders ... "
In 2008, Whakatane recorded 2703 hours of sunshine, leading Niwa to believe the sunshine recording equipment was faulty, disqualifying the town.
Whakatane's equipment was then tested in April 2009 and was then deemed to be ineligible for the competition as it was not counted as a full year of recording.
Vindication came sweet for Whakatane in 2010 when the newly calibrated sunshine recorder still topped all the other recorded locations in the country with 2561 hours of sunshine for the year, beating runner-up Nelson by 87 hours.
Meanwhile, it isn't known how Rotorua ranks next to its sunny neighbour.
Niwa climate scientists Andrew Tait said sunshine hours in Rotorua hadn't been recorded since 2010.
However, solar radiation data is measured at Rotorua Airport now which is similar to sunshine hours.
Data collected in 2011 for Rotorua showed solar radiation was about the same as in previous years which averaged 2130 sunshine hours, Mr Tait said.
2011's sunny spots
Nelson .................... 2487 sun hours
Tekapo ....................2463 hours
Whakatane .............2380 hours
Blenheim ................2342 hours
Gisbourne ..............2216 hours