KEY POINTS:
Tauranga was the sunniest city in the North Island last year, edging out its closest rival Gisborne by 51 hours.
But it slips to fifth place when the count is extended to cover all towns in New Zealand.
The sunniest place in the country was Blenheim, with 2567 hours of shine, 161 ahead of Tauranga's 2406 hours.
The three other regional towns or cities more sunny than Tauranga were Lake Tekapo (2554 hours), Whakatane (2551 hours) and Nelson (2514 hours). The average temperatures at Tauranga was 15.2C - or 0.6C above the average since records began.
Temperatures were slightly above average in the Western Bay by about 0.3C - in common with 10 other regions including Northland, Auckland, Thames-Coromandel, Waikato and Taranaki.
The year's national average temperature was 12.7C.
