Seeking Nelson’s place in the sun

The rivalry for the sunniest spot at the top of the south is heating up.

Nelson Mayor Rachel Reese took the opportunity at the final full council meeting of the year to give Nelson councillors an update about her ‘‘ongoing conversations’’ with NIWA about an apparent discrepancy between sunshine hours in Nelson versus Richmond.

‘‘I’ve been having a lot of correspondence with NIWA for the last year,’’ she said.

It’s been a sore spot for Reese, and many Nelsonians, as Richmond has outshone Nelson repeatedly, holding the top sunny spot despite the proximity of the two areas. In January, Richmond was recorded as having 350 more hours’ sunshine in 2016 than neighbouring Nelson.

There has been discussion about whether the difference could be down to a ‘‘shading effect’’, or whether it was simply due to difference devices used to record sunshine hours.

Reese said technicians from NIWA had been to Nelson recently and taken new imaging, and found it appears it’s the latter.

‘‘As a result of their analysis, they’ve found there is no difference at all for the exposure to sun on any of these sites at any time of the year. Isn’t that a surprise?’’ she said.

There were no obstructions to the sun’s path across Nelson and Richmond.

‘‘Essentially, the amount of sun at Nelson and the amount of sun at Richmond is the same.’’

Reese said there needed to a ‘‘level playing field’’ if a hierarchy was going to be recorded for sunniest places across the country, and Nelson would consider getting an appropriate recording device installed if need be.

In the meantime she suggested NIWA ought to make a notation to reflect that if Richmond came out on top, it meant Nelson had too.

‘‘In other words when Richmond get to number one... and are described as the sunniest place in New Zealand, NIWA are going to need to make a notation to say ‘and Nelson stands side-by-side, holding hands with the township of Richmond as the sunniest place in New Zealand’.’’

It was a light-hearted dis- cussion on the part of councillors, but Reese said it was an important part of Nelson’s ‘‘sunny’’ identity.

Tasman Mayor Richard Kempthorne said he was happy for Nelson to ‘‘piggyback’’ on Richmond’s sunshine hours.

As to whether he’d be sharing the coveted Sunshine Trophy with Nelson City Council, Kempthorne said he’d have to think about it.

‘‘I’ll have to put that to my council of course, to see how the vote goes, but I’m sure we’ll be happy to share the award and since we have the cup at the moment, I’ll have great delight in giving it to myself,’’ he said.

The sunshine hierarchy for 2017 will be released on January 9, but as at December 14 the latest figures were Richmond at 2460, followed by Blenheim at 2451.

Kempthorne said the sunshine hours recording reflected the good weather than Tasman, Nelson and Blenheim all were fortunate to have.

‘‘We have a real sunny little spot here and it does ping across from one to another as to who is most sunny but it’s pretty good reflection of the really nice climate in the top of the South Island.’’

NIWA spokesperson Susan Pepperell said at NIWA’s Richmond weather station sunshine hours were recorded automatically by a high precision electronic sensor.

‘‘At Nelson Airport, the current site of Nelson sunshine observations, which is 4km northeast of the Richmond station, sunshine is measured by a Campbell Stokes sunshine instrument, which burns a hole in a suncard,’’ she said.

‘‘This instrument is less precise than the electronic sensor during certain weather conditions, lead- ing to the discrepancy in sunshine hour totals recorded at Richmond compared to Nelson Airport.’’

She said that the data gathered from Richmond was sufficient for NIWA’s climatological recording network, and was ‘‘deemed a fair scientific reflection of the sunshine hours observed in the nearby area’’.

There was a possibility of adding a sunshine recorder to the Nelson Airport site and there were ongoing discussions being held between NIWA and the council about this.

Last January, Richmond was officially named sunshine capital of New Zealand, with 2840 hours of sunshine in 2016 — the highest number ever recorded in New Zealand, according to Niwa’s annual climate summary.