New Zealand reports warmest and wettest winter on record

A car submerged in recent flooding in Nelson, which came at the end of New Zealand’s warmest and wettest winter on record. Photograph: Sara Hollyman/Andrew App/AFP/Getty Images

New Zealand has had its warmest and wettest winter on record, with one meteorologist describing it as “mother nature’s way of expressing she has a fever”.

For the three months to the end of August 2022, the average temperature was 9.8C, according to New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa).