Broadly speaking, there are three main steps in forecasting the weather: Pick a starting point, a single moment in time from which to build up as clear a picture as possible about the current state of the atmosphere. Over the years I've dialled my resource of weather sites down to a handy five links. MetService forecasters also offer their own subjective opinion, usually in the form of a short sentence on the site or app, for each region. We aim forover 85 per cent for severe gales and heavy snow and 90 per cent for heavy rain, says Murray. Renwick says because MetService actually applies human expertise to its forecasts, hed be fairly confident theyre more accurate over time than an automated app powered solely by an overseas model. But why only pick one model? We wouldn't advise anyone to take the seven day forecasts literally but hope that these longer forecasts will provide some useful indication of how things might develop. Find out what makes AccuWeather the best as a trusted, free weather app. MetService does record how successful its severe weather warnings are, because ultimately that's the weather that matters most. And when you do the next steps they get slightly bigger again and bigger again, Renwick says. But accuweather is the most accurate. But that shouldn't stop you checking things out well ahead of time because planning trips is fun and the weather does have a substantial impact on what we do, especially in the mountains and tops / high country environments. One can show severe weather and one could say wed be about to have a fine day, she says. The general Metservice forecast is the go to top line weather site for me. Our weather tracker & live radar gives you Superior AccuracySevere weather warnings, todays temperature, free weather radar maps & more!- Get local forecasts and personalize the app depending on where you are in the world- Go beyond todays weather and look 45 days ahead to ensure that youre prepared for any weather- Try the MinuteCast feature for the most up to date live Minute by Minute weather forecast- Weather alerts, storm alerts, and more! They see how the model is performing by mapping it against real-time observations like satellite and radar imagery. The agencies listed above already use some of the worlds most powerful supercomputers to predict the weather. Its the weather tracker you need!Advanced Weather RadarSetting the standard for free weather radar:- The accurate weather radar you know from AccuWeather- Weather watches and warnings for your local area- RealVue and Enhanced RealVue satellite imagery looking at weather patterns from space- Weather radar views for water vapor, rainfall, sustained winds, and even storm surges- Timely tropical storm radar tracking to see where and when storms might hit- Current conditions maps shows temperature and RealFeel in and around your area- 5-day precipitation outlook to see what rain, snow, and ice could be in your area- 24-hour snowfall forecast shows detailed maps with snow accumulation and winter weather- Temperature contour maps show how the temperature will change over the next dayFor over 10 years, the AccuWeather app has brought you the weatherThis free weather app can show you snow, wind, cold, rain and more! These weather forecast charts are generated by software written and maintained by James McGregor. That conclusion provides a new starting point for further predictions. The information presentation is great and It hasn't crashed on my phone a single time so far.

Get trending videos from AccuWeathers dedicated news team- Weather forecasting your way - a weather tracker that can filter and customize according to your preferencesDownload the AccuWeather app today for free and enjoy award-winning Superior Accuracy in weather forecasting on your iPhone, Apple Watch, or other Apple device. It's one of the most computer intensive applications there is, Renwick says. They all offer something unique and by using a few different sources you can quickly establish a trend of what to expect. This is more of a fun one (as fun as meteorology gets) that has really nice graphic and topo maps that can show various weather conditions over the day in a drilled down zone just by using the slider to change the time of day. When forecasts have a higher resolution, it's much easier to predict precisely whether there will be rain, wind or shine and where. Much much better than Met Service! The data used is obtained from the United States National Weather Service. Technically, forecasts begin to break down almost immediately. Much of the country is in the Roaring Forties, a system of westerly winds between 40 and 50 degrees latitude. Copyright 2022 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. So on Tuesday, January 12, the forecasters pick for Christchurch said Cloudy at times. You wouldnt try and predict the score of a rugby match without knowing the starting teams and pitch conditions. Forecasters will then take those results and repeat the process, and repeat, continuing until they have predictions for a day, three days, a week essentially short and long-term forecasts. The reasons why come down to complex international models, stunning supercomputers, and human judgement. What comes out? LearnMore, English, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Norwegian Bokml, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese. This grows in steps. Its hard to say. At a minimum of two weeks out I'll be looking at long range forecasts trying to predict what's going to happen over the upcoming days, but looking that far out nothing is certain, no matter which way it's going. This image shows a low-resolution and high-resolution rain forecast in New Zealand. By comparison, the Xbox Series X can handle up to 12 trillion operations a second. Copyright 2022 Chris Noble. Getting an accurate starting point isnt easy. Thanks for the improvements. You'll find 2-day, hour-by-hour forecasts for 49 locations across Aotearoa New Zealand. It'd be like soldering an iPhone to an Android phone for more processing power. It is based on what the atmosphere looks like right now and subsequently modelling what it will look like at a point in time in the future. The atmosphere is chaotic, mercurial and despite huge advances in computational power and the availability of data and satellite imagery, the picture is often imperfect. (Generally speaking, the MetService app is updated four times a day.). The Hourly Observations and Forecasts are based on the global model picked by MetService. It just doesn't work. Providing a high-level worldwide overview of the weather already requires huge computational resources and asking the global model for a higher resolution forecast that shows whats happening in central Auckland or Wellington isnt realistic. More than just a daily forecast, try the best weather app and get more from your forecast. But the sea breeze that comes into Christchurch is northeasterly. AccuWeather, a popular US-based weather forecasting service, predicted a 50 per cent chance of light rain at midday, while the others said there was no chance of showers. Hi Developers, this is a great application. All rights reserved. If it's showing lots of the blue and grey stuff then keep digging. EXPLAINER: If you want a weather forecast you can choose from many different providers but sometimes their forecasts clash. How does forecasting work and who should you listen to? NZ forecast charts A shower may not be a big deal, but this simple example shows the discrepancies that can exist between weather forecasts. These charts are updated approximately every 6 hours and provide forecasts up to 192h ahead of the time they were issued. Kelburn As this kind of modelling breaks a region up into much more manageable bite-size pieces, it requires less computer processing grunt, and allows forecasters to input all the geographical quirks mountains, hills, valleys to ensure you know whether itd be a good idea to cancel the barbecue or get out and buy the sausages. This explains why you can get a different forecast depending on the app, radio bulletin or video you consult. Developers can show information here about how their app collects and uses your data. Let me tell you it's an unnecessary rollercoaster of emotions because you can't change the weather, and the weather always changes. Remember, this is New Zealand. So what sort of summer is in store over the next few months? There will be plenty of other places to find the same sort of mountain weather forecast out there, but hopefully this helps you give a head start if you haven't done a lot of backcountry missions, or even car camping planning before. This is an example of a MetService three-day rain forecasting model, mapping out what kind of weather we're in for. To keep up to date with our latest blog sign up to our newsletter. Why not combine a few?

Billions of data points from satellites, weather balloons, airplanes, buoys and ground observing stations. Then Mountain-Forecast.com is a great resource for telling you what might be going on up high. If you'd like to read what others are saying about Ken Ring and his highly questionable methods, including comments by respected members of the New Zealand scientific community such as ERICK BRENSTRUM (at MetService) and DR JAMES RENWICK (formerly NIWA, now at Victoria University of Wellington), click through to my Lunarcy page, which I hope you'll find as a useful starting place ------1NZ Satellite image via NOAA2NZ lightning via Blitzortung. Webster et al (2008) A high-resolution modelling case study of a severe weather event over New Zealand Atmospheric Science Letters. Youve got to start off from a certain point, which might be midday today, lets say. If the area you're looking to visit is known for its micro climate then this is a cool place to look. The data on these pages are provided with no guarantees as to their accuracy or timeliness.

Interestingly, that might mean their overall forecast for New Zealand is broadly very accurate but it may be off in some parts of the country. New Zealand eScience Infrastructure, a numerical model that describes how the atmosphere behaves, a means of inserting that observation data into the model to generate the best possible initial condition, and. But it insists it performs better than its competitors. My suggestion is to display wind in the small widget. How do they make that call? Human expertise is applied to interpret the results and offer some subjective evaluation. However, I would like to suggest something that a lot of users could take advantage of. For more information, see the developer's privacy policy. YR Weather offers a more localised, drilled down, forecasting based off local stations. Severe Weather Map. Check out the site at weather.niwa.co.nz. Too many ads and no way to pay to remove them. - AccuWeather now has custom sounds for your notifications that help differentiate critical conditions from the rest.- Bug fixes and performance improvements. Note how the image on the right shows more detail. We suspect that different users, who each have their own particular need for a forecast, will each have a different perception of their usefulness and accuracy. What will happen in a few minutes from now? This data is then published to their website. )The new widget is good too. Its also important to realise the global models dont necessarily provide granular (or high-resolution) information on individual towns or regions in New Zealand. Those imperfections really do matter (well get back to that later). And those errors might be tiny were talking 1/100 of a degree too warm here, a tiny fraction of a hectopascal too low over there. (A hectopascal is a measure of atmospheric or barometric pressure.). )I look forward to having a really good Accuweather widget on my home screen once iOS 14 is released. As outlined above, when MetService ingest their three global models, theyll pick the one that tells the most accurate story for New Zealand for a given timeframe. Basic app just not as good as it could be. I use WindyTy primarily to try and see wind switches over the day or week. Will you sleep in a hut, tent, or can you carry only a fly? It was best to avoid Nelson Lakes National Park on that particular day. The weather will dictate what gear you're taking, will you really need insulated over-trousers or can you get away with shorts and a merino base layer? NIWA Weather is NIWA's public facing weather forecasting website. Its not that simple. The demands of forecasting have helped drive the development of supercomputers since the 1950s. But on average, a week to 10 days is the limit, Renwick says. TVNZ's Dan Corbett assesses the MetServices predictions and adds his own personal expertise when delivering the forecast. With a helping wind, you can be fairly confident the All Blacks will be up at half time, so what does that mean for the next forty minutes? The overnight/morning/afternoon/evening icons are also picked by the human forecaster. It's the meteorological first day of summer, but depending where in the country you are, it may not feel like it yet with cold or wet weather forecast for much of the country. So If Im the forecaster, Im not going to put them into a forecast. Navigation around the app is so much better. Each could be basing its prediction on different data sources. Youd have more luck looking out the window for your weather predictions than with them!Accu Weather is not always accurate, but far far more reliable than Met Service! If youre not sure itll rain tomorrow, its safer to say it will.. The BBC , for example, incorrectly predicted a storm in the UK in 2018, angering some local business. The models ingest bucket loads of data from satellites, weather stations, radar, and so on to create a picture of what's going on right now and apply hugely complicated equations to try and predict what the future holds. All rights reservedPrivacy Policy, Free phone within New Zealand: 0800 RING NIWA (0800 746 464) Contact details, Principal Scientist - Forecasting and Media, Air quality monitoring with low-cost sensors. North easterlies'. Fix for issues experienced by some users on Android 12, 30 Salamanca Road Sure, the All Blacks won, but what does mean come World Cup time? You get your best estimate of what the weather around the world, and country is doing, at a certain point in time, says Professor James Renwick, a climate scientist at Victoria University of Wellington. From that base, the supercomputer applies various equations to see what the future holds. TVNZ weatherman Dan Corbett, who has worked with the MetService and the BBC, says its vital a TV forecast adds added-value, or that extra bit of information people cant get from an app. The developer, AccuWeather International, Inc., indicated that the apps privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. If it's looking like the area you are heading to is going to cop a beating then you'll want to start looking at a plan B, C and Dand potentially back to plan A again. Clearly reliability will decline with the length of the forecast - experience and time will tell how significant this is.

Can the moon be used to forecast the weather as claimed by controversial "Moon Man" Ken Ring? We are looking forward to receiving feedback on the usefulness of the longer period forecasts, we aren't sure how good they will be. The user interface is much improved in this new version. It takes six hours to generate all the forecasts and so the issue time should be between 6-12 hours behind the current time. My ethos is plan for the worst based on the information at hand, then go outside, look up and get into it. They didn't used to be so bad, but very recently the ads are showing up as you scroll down the weather into for an area, which totally ruins the experience. The models come from some of the worlds largest weather agencies: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US, the UK Met Office, along with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. He acknowledges that weather forecasting is not perfect and always tries to explain to viewers what happened when a prediction goes wrong. (There are 15 zeros in a quadrillion.) MetService uses three models in its forecasting: one each from the UK, Europe and the US. Theres this thing called Wet Bias where forecasters say its more likely to rain than it is. On the morning of Tuesday, January 12, the MetService website, the AccuWeather app, and Apples weather app (powered by IBMs Weather Channel) told different stories. Theyre too complex. a computer of sufficient power to be able generate a forecast sufficiently quickly for it to be useful. Hands down the best and most accurate. Stay prepared with our local weather and live forecasts. MetService's Head of Weather Communications Lisa Murray. If the models are showing the chance of a shower in Northland, you need to ask yourself, Do I put that in? From extreme humidity, severe storms, allergy info, air quality index, snow storms, and ice alerts, get live updates that matter to you. On my travels I tested a bunch of weather apps and found a lot of them inconsistent or lacking. Don't make the mistake of looking at the weather forecast for, say, the Ruahine foothills that might forecast 20kt winds because when you hit the bushline and stick your nose over the ridge you'll get blown back off the hill. In my opinion - most definitely NOT! We dont observe the weather perfectly everywhere in the world, from the surface of the earth to the top of the atmosphere. If there's one thing I'm obsessed with when it comes to planning trips, it's the weather. It's low on detail but if it's showing ten straight sunny days then that's a pretty good sign that there's a huge anti cyclone sitting right above where you want to be, happy days. Perhaps the best and most logical comment on this issue was made by ERICK BRENSTRUM in the May-June 2006 NZ Geographic magazine; You can't argue with that! But if theyre looking at the same conditions, why dont competing forecasters deliver identical predictions? Wellington 6011 Local weather forecasts are the AccuWeather specialty. NOAAs supercomputer: What goes in? Eric Floehr, founder of ForecastWatch, a US company that analyses the performance of weather provider has previously told the Guardian of this phenomenon: As a consumer you are going to be a lot more upset with a forecaster if you get rained on and forget your umbrella, than if you dont have to use the umbrella you took. But, while it has become increasingly rare, sometimes the global models forecasts differ, Murray says. I'm not trying to say the forecast is rubbish. But in the commentary on the top of this forecast, the MetService forecasters picked Northeasterlies. I think the location names on the radar map, just like the one in metservice website, would be greatly useful to look at as many users, especially from overseas, may not be super confident at knowing their positions just by looking at nz's map shape. How Apple, AccuWeather, and MetService called the weather in Christchurch on Tuesday, January 12, 2021. Forecasters sometimes get it wrong. READ MORE: * Wellington wins the award for wet and windy weather in 2020, NIWA climate report shows * Coronavirus: Fewer planes means less weather forecast data * On a hot streak: Warming climate a wake up call * MetService called back to Parliament to 'please explain' 5G issues. (Currently wind info is visible only after expanding the widget. New Zealand, https://about.metservice.com/our-company/about-this-site/privacy-policy/, More by Meteorological Service of New Zealand. For example, when it was upgraded in 2018, the NOAAs weather and climate supercomputer was among the 30 fastest in the world, processing 8 quadrillion calculations per second. It pays to have a basic understanding of how to read a weather map, which can also be a curse as it will bring out the amateur professional weather forecaster in all of us. . Very recently people have died because they didn't account for the wind chill and the conditions can be wildly different once you have gained a few hundred metres elevation - and even if you're not planning on spending any substantial amount of time at that height you do need to be suitably prepared if you get stuck for whatever reason. They can be. This app is no longer usable for me so I have uninstalled it. I understood the need for some advertising when you open the app, but even that has changed and no longer dismisses automatically, so you have to tap the continue button. The [global] model had gone for easterlies all day. (Spoiler: Itll be windy in Wellington.).

So Metservice hasn't given you the detailed mountain forecast you want? The new update is spectacular! If this is not the case try pressing the 'refresh' button on your browser. Since New Zealand is an archipelago of many islands, micro-climates are plentiful, which can increase the difficulty of forecasting, says Jason Nicholls, lead international forecaster with AccuWeather.

PO Box 1060, Invercargill 9840, New Zealand, YR Weather offers a more localised, drilled down, forecasting, use WindyTy primarily to try and see wind switches, Mountain-Forecast.com is a great resource, 2022 NZ Duck Hunting Season Opening Weekend, 5 Epic NZ Great Rides Coastal Bike Tracks, The Back Country Cuisine Outback Burrito Recipe, Retracing The Waiatoto River, The Wild Way, Three Brothers Cycle The Paparoa Bike Trail. NIWA Weather is NIWA's public facing weather forecasting website. On any given day, a forecaster will pick the best or most accurate model for New Zealand, MetServices Head of Weather Communications, Lisa Murray, explains. Once theyve got this starting point, forecasters will, for example, map out what the weather will look like three to four minutes in the future, Renwick explains. Youre never going to have a starting state that is perfect, says Renwick. For example, AccuWeather doesnt keep specific stats on its forecasts in New Zealand.