Those “hit list” comments for the main centres that NIWA provides in the preliminary summaries are rather silly. Obviously the northernmost 2 are the only ones that have a chance of being the warmest, similarly the southernmost 2 for being the coolest. And as Tauranga has a considerably higher sunshine average than the other centres both on an annual basis and for most single months, the “sunniest” rating doesn’t usually say much. The report said “wettest”, not “windiest” for Wellington – the latter would be self-evident almost always. But here “wettest” was a silly term, as all 6 were much drier than average, including Wellington. Wellington was the 2nd sunniest for March, well ahead of the remaining 4 cities.

It would be better if the comments simply noted how far off their normal readings the centres were (these are included in the detailed NIWA report and don’t require all that much text).