> From the WeatherWatch archives
Blenheim enjoyed the sunniest August on record in their 82 year history but Nelson still managed to pip them by 12 hours.
Rivalry between the centres has gone on for years in regards to who has the most sunshine per year.
Blenheim’s Meteorolgical station recorded 235 hours of sunshine for the month which is an average of seven hours and 40 minutes a day.Nelson’s station recorded a total of 247 hours for the month of August.
Those sorts of sunshine averages per day are more like the middle of summer for many areas around New Zealand and definitely not the last month of winter.
Blenheim did see a few brief snow showers during the nationwide wintry outbreak last month but this cold spell appears to have done very little to hamper a very sunny August.
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Before you add a new comment, take note this story was published on 2 Sep 2011.
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RW on 3/09/2011 1:13am
Both Nelson and Blenheim surpassed the previous record August high for New Zealand of 234 hours (Nelson 1932, using records from 1930 onwards). Nelson’s total was about 80% of the possible at the site – that is an extremely rare occurrence in maritime NZ, and 7 months of the year have never had this happen! (August was the 8th until this event occurred). Only February, March, June, July and August have so far had a site match the 80% mark – but it’s interesting that of places with normal daylight levels all year round, the relatively best reading was in July 1952 at Blenheim (231 hours, about 84.5% of the recordable).
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