If you thought summer had been bright you were right: Central is the sunniest place so far this year, according to the seasonal summary published by National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA).

Central’s result of 562.5 sunshine hours eclipses the West Coast’s 548.6, Mackenzie Basin’s 545.4 and Queenstown Lakes district’s total of 526.7 hours.

NIWA meteorologist Ben Noll said this summer was a “dress rehearsal” for what summers of the future would start to look like due to climate change.

“These extreme events such as we saw with the cyclones are going to increase.”

It was also the fifth driest summer on record for the South Island. 

For February in parts of the South Island, rainfall was below (50-79 per cent) or even well below normal (less than 50 per cent), as was seen in Fiordland. 

Meteorological drought developed in Otago last month, with many areas recording less than half of their normal summer rainfall.  

The highest temperature was 35.6°C recorded at Middlemarch on February 4. 

It was a hot and dry summer for much of the South Island. PHOTO: Supplied 

Summer 2022-23 was characterised by contrasting weather extremes across New Zealand, and it was the third warmest on record. 

It was exceptionally wet for the North Island (Napier received 600 per cent above its normal rainfall), and there were periods of hot, dry and sunny weather for the South. 

February 2023 will be remembered as the month that New Zealand experienced one of its worst weather disasters, Cyclone Gabrielle (February 13-14).

Along with huge amounts of rainfall for parts of the North Island,  it was also warmer than usual across New Zealand. 

The nationwide average temperature in February 2023 was 18.5°C, 1.1°C above the 1991-2020 February average.

The weather for the first week of autumn in Central

For more on the seasonal summary see NIWA’s website.