Today is the shortest day of the year, and for many people that signals the middle of winter - the day when the sun spends the least amount of time in the sky.
Yet no one told Mother Nature it seems, as the Metservice boffins are delighted to declare today in the Bay is set to be mainly sunny, with some high cloud, mild northwesterly winds and a remarkable "mid-winter" expected high of 18C.
At the same time last year the day's high was a grim old 10C.
That's more like it.
But who's complaining?
Maybe the folk down Invercargill way where the sun today was not expected to emerge from beneath the horizon until 8.31am ... that's pretty well an hour after it rises here.
And they have 12C and cloudy skies on the menu.
The only advantage down that way is that the sun stays in sight six minutes longer at the end of the day.
It rose here this morning at 7.33 and will set at 4.56pm.
Tomorrow, it will remain in the sky for just a little longer ... about 35 seconds longer.
But next Tuesday it will stick around for an extra minute, and the week after that it will be two minutes.
If that isn't heartening enough, and in the wake of an exceptionally warm June thus far, the temperatures are forecast to hover around the mid teens right through until the start of July.
There will however be a few showers but hey, it's mid-winter ... allegedly.
Of course the meteorologists and weather science chaps are always keen to scotch any optimism that we are on the road to spring from tomorrow.
As was my late mother and many other wise heads who embrace the old saying "as the days grow longer the cold gets stronger".
They are right.
It's all to do with the gradual loss of heat built up over the past few months.
Like the longest day (December 21) the warmest months are the two which follow.
Just like the coldest ones ... July and August.
But hey, it's the summer solstice in Europe and guess what ... it's only 17C in Amsterdam.
Pass the sunscreen.
Clayton Hairs is now a tetraplegic. He hopes his survival story will be a wake-up call.