They say "you can't beat Wellington on a good day" - but how many "good days" can you get in Wellington?
Analyst James Mulrennan on Twitter has done the math and created a visualisation that tracked how many "good days" there have been since January 1st 1954.
The data, sourced from NIWA, defines a "good day" as a date where the temperature rose above 18C, the rain was less than 0.5mm, average wind speeds were below 15km/h and where more than 75% of daylight hours were sunny.
And since 1954, Wellington has had 1839 days. Out of 69 years worth of days, that makes it a collective five years worth - or 7% for percentage fans.
On average, it meant Wellingtonians experienced 26 good days a year. Aw.
James's research also found some different interesting facts. That the longest run of back-to-back good days was 10, from 12 to 21 March 2003.
The latest good day heading into winter was on 31 May 2003, and the earliest good day heading out was 3 September 2014.
The "goodest day" was 6 January 1975, when there was a high of 22°, no rain, 90% sunshine, and a gentle 10km/h breeze.
The initial idea for his data visualisation came from a chat with a friend who questioned the classic Wellingtonian phrase.
"[I saw] a tweet from a mutual [friend] saying they couldn't remember a run of good days like we've had this week," he told 1News.
"[It was] very much [a] vibes-based analysis, [I] thought about what the last few days (which felt "good" to me) were like, then went from there," he said.
James warned a change in NIWA's data-gathering methods in 2004 may have skewed wind readings, causing fewer good days to register within the past two decades.
But he did note that those "good days" could increase by 10% if wind parameters were ignored or 14% if cold temperatures weren't a factor.
As they say though, while the days can be few and far between - you can't beat Wellington on a good day!
