The figures provided by local weather analyst John Scott are based on the daily sunshine hours contained in Niwa's CliFlo database as of January 1. With 2704 sunshine hours, Whakatāne came in 89 hours ahead of second-placed Richmond, 105 hours ahead of Blenheim and 109 hours ahead of New Plymouth. Scott said the town recorded the highest sunshine hours in the country in January, February, May and December 2020. When Whakatāne won through 2012 to 2014, cans of "Whakatāne sunshine" were handed out to losing districts as a joke. Whakatāne is not the Eastern Bay's only sunny spot with Kawerau finishing ninth in the sunshine stakes with 2235 sunshine hours.

Source: New Zealand Herald January 05, 2021 18:00 UTC