Pollen records of deglacial sequences from northwest Nelson, New Zealand, demonstrate that there was no significant temperature decline associated with the Younger Dryas in New Zealand. Records of glacial advances at this time were either the product of increased snow accumulation under enhanced precipitation regimes or random variation rather than the result of a regional thermal decline. This finding supports those models of Younger Dryas initiation that require neither enhanced westerly circulation nor significant thermal decline in the Southern Hemisphere.