General December Weather

[Nev]

NIWA has confirmed today that 2022 was indeed NZ's warmest year on record.

Annual average temp was 13.76C, or 0.20C warmer than last year's previous record.

NIWA National 2022 Temp Anomalies.png

Amongst many others, it was also Auckland Aero, Tauranga Aero, Hamilton Aero and Ruakura's (Hamilton) warmest year on record, while Mangere (Akld) and Kelburn (Wgtn) had their second warmest, and Musselburgh (Dunedin) its third warmest.

[Cherie]

Heard this on RNZ that Taranaki had the highest sunshine hours last year and am confused - I thought traditionally it was Nelson /Blenheim / Whakatane that traditionally battled for the top spot. Am I missing something or did Taranaki have an unusually sunny year? https://open.spotify.com/episode/1uDV8w ... 4pgQmWTui9

[spwill]

Does look a bit odd.

[Nev]

Heard this on RNZ that Taranaki had the highest sunshine hours last year and am confused - I thought traditionally it was Nelson /Blenheim / Whakatane that traditionally battled for the top spot. Am I missing something or did Taranaki have an unusually sunny year?

Taranaki (or New Plymouth Aero) was also NZ's sunniest spot for 2021. Not that surprising though given the amount of La Nina easterlies.

Note that like most other sites these days, New Plymouth switched to an electronic sunshine sensor in late 2011, although that was found to be faulty and replaced a few years later. These sensors also tend to generally read a little higher than the old manual method, which is why NIWA no longer report comparisons with past sunshine data.