A very unpleasant side-effect of blocking scenarios with a succession of lows and troughs over the North Island, with Wellington faring exceptionally badly. The 79.6 hours of sunshine was 25 less than the previous low, and was a little under 49% of the average amount - no month in the 89-year Kelburn record had previously had less than about 53% of its average. Worse still was that it dead-heated with May 1942 with only 23.7% of the possible recordable amount. The monthly total was only just over half of July's!

Given that the month also featured a southerly storm early on, I rate it as easily the worst September I have experienced here, and those numbers show that it was also the (equal) gloomiest month in the entire record. If this had occurred in earlier times when the reports and stats. were place in periodicals like the NZ Gazette and I had come across it in such a source, I would have initially assumed there had been a misprint somewhere ... but the supporting commentary was good then and daily stats for Wellington were published in a summary table until early 1943.

The whole of the North Island and a portion of the South Island from Nelson to coastal South Canterbury was also in sunshine deficit varying from moderate to substantial, but I'll put up some more numbers when they are available.

Ah well win some lose some, we can't always have what we want and even countries with sunfilled days are getting more cloud and rain,  I mean look at our neighbour Australia over the past few days and they are used to blue blue skies with warm temperatures

In the range alright - for December averages we have Kew 21.5%, Shanklin 25.5%, Bognor 28.5% {Shanklin sunniest UK location on an annual basis}.

In the range alright - for December averages we have Kew 21.5%, Shanklin 25.5%, Bognor 28.5% {Shanklin sunniest UK location on an annual basis}.
I must admit that had to look Shanklin up to see where in the SE it was! Isle of Wight- of course!

Lol re Shanklin - I think Bognor is better known ... {George V's dying comment helped cement that in perhaps ...}

To avoid the impression that Kelburn's low was anywhere near a national record - here are a few numbers in descending order (for sites with published horizon data) -

Haast         Feb  1966 19.1% (70 out of 366 recordable)
Palm Nth    Oct 1983  17.4% (67 of 385)
Timaru       Mar 1979  16.0% (59 of 368)
Greymouth Oct 1988  15.0%  (57 of 379)
Invercargill Jun 1935   14.2% (35 of 244)
Waimate    Dec 1959   13.4% (60 of 450)

There are quite a few entries at 20% or lower, Invercargill appearing 5 times, Waimate and Greymouth 3 times.