While March and April were relatively uneventful in our region, May was the warmest on record for New Zealand as a whole and for both Wellington and the Wairarapa separately. An unseasonal warm spell at the beginning of May saw a blocking anticyclone pushing subtropical warm air towards the region and the South Island, with Martinborough hitting almost 24 degrees on 8 May. On the map, courtesy of windy.com, one can see the extreme unseasonal warm temperatures marked in red for 2 May, with the anticyclone to the east of the country.