He and most Ophir residents spoken to yesterday, along with William Cockerill, who took the minus 21.6degC reading in Ophir in 1995, the previous record, also disagreed the reading was unofficial.
"When I took the minus 21.6degC reading, it was from a box supplied by Metservice, so I sent the thermometer to them to check the accuracy and it was to within 0.1 of a degree. It was them that decided it was a record temperature," Mr Cockerill said.
Niwa senior climate scientist Georgina Griffiths said it was considered unofficial "because it wasn't recorded on our bits of paper, but it was a commonly held number - the Metservice had it and we did have people call it in".
Mr Leask also cast doubt on whether the minus 25.6degC recorded in Ranfurly was in fact the country's lowest temperature.
"We don't know what temperature we had here in 1903, but I think if Ranfurly got minus 25.6, then places like Oturehua [in the Ida Valley] might have been colder."
