Have we been cheated out of a summer? It's certainly looking that way.

A year ago Timaru took the national high with a 41.3C peak at the start of February. This weekend they had 18C while Dunedin had only 14 on Sunday.

Last year the North Island's eastern areas were climbing to the mid 30s ... but this week reaching the low 20s has been an achievement.

New Zealand has been swamped in cloud this summer and that has helped lower our temperatures, but so too have the highs, which have been bigger than usual and have been coming in from south of Australia. This angle of attack means the wind flow before the highs move in is often southeasterly.

This time last year we had more westerlies and northerlies. What's the difference? Well, the westerlies last year came off the Australian desert. Our air masses this year are coming in from over the ocean - and we're not talking tropical oceans from the north, we're talking the Southern Ocean and western Pacific, neither well-known for being especially warm.

Add to that the highs which have blocked the tropical storms, so we haven't had the extra hot, humid air masses we saw last summer.

But the coolness in the air doesn't mean autumn is arriving already. It's simply bad luck. I said last week that if you imagine the seasons as speed zones, then summer is a 100km/h zone and autumn is a 70km/h ... but we've been driving at 70 all summer so the change to the autumn speed zone will have little impact.

And just to get an idea as to how cool some of our days and nights have been, a poll run at WeatherWatch.co.nz this week asked readers if they had used home heating this summer, be it fires, heatpumps or heaters. Forty per cent have said "yes" so far.

"Heatpumps have been on heat instead of cooling," said Denis Wadworth of New Plymouth.

Nicola Nicholson of Auckland told us: "Had to turn my baby's heater on in the wee hours this morning, it was freezing! Even had to turn our HRV off at night as it's too breezy!"

As for the rest of February: I think we'll see a slight improvement, but the days are quickly running out for the really hot stuff.
 
- Homepage image / Mike Condon

It has been very evident in the Hutt Valley, the number of times we have entertained outside we can count on one hand, The number of BBQ's held is also very low.
The evenings have been cool and cloudy with most times a cool breeze puffing through.
I can not recall a cooler, cloudier summer than this one, It will interesting to see what Rupert will come up with in his stats report.
The temperatures over NZ have been lower than what I would have expected, As Jenny stated the East Coast of the North Island have hardly had any tempratures in the 30 degree mark which is what would be expected this time of the year

Very cool for you, but it's no predictor of winter at all - correlation is about zero, as I checked recently.

The really big deal for most of the country this month so far is the very low sunshine, the coolness less so. The Christchurch numbers for sun so far are terrible for February, with the record low of 112 perhaps under threat (Marlborough is not doing well, either).

I have had a look at Wellington sun data for the first 15 days of February. Our average for the entire month is 208 hours, and for the first 15 days of Feb 112 hours.

This Feb. the total is only about 60 (yesterday's assumed to be near zero, not available yet). This is the lowest in records going back to 1954. There could be a turnaround in the remainder of the month - the two halves have quite often been contrasting. The dullest Feb (2004) with 145, was pretty poor in both halves (76 and 69). This was of course the February with massive rainfalls and floods, certainly the worst one in the books by any sane measurement. February 1988 started off very warm, humid and cloudy - just 63 hours - but the second half was brighter and cooler (only 161 month total though). February 1976 was a very cold though not wet month here with some biting southerlies early on - just 66 hours to the 15th. But then the remainder, though still cool, was bright and sunny almost every day and the total of 187 was respectable.

The best one - 1994 was warm, sunny and dry throughout (130 in each half for a total of 260, only surpassed by Feb. 1946). Feb. 1982 was spectacularly bright and also very warm in the first half with one 30C day, continuing on from similar conditions in late January, and had 179 hours in just 15 days. The remainder was much cloudier but remained mild and dry. In 1966 warm and quite sunny conditions with 120 hours to 15th were followed by a crash in the 2nd half to very cloudy and humid instability, with the month's total just 158 hours.

The most notable thing about this summer for me is the lack of high temperatures - only a handful of days have made 25.0°C and not a single day has hit 26.0°C! Recent February months have had mean highs of 25-26°C! Also, the restless 20C nights with 90%+ humidity have not occurred at all this summer...