New on MetService.com

[winzurf]

There is a new inshore forecast for Bay of Plenty

http://www.metservice.com/default/index ... ayofplenty

and Severe Thunderstorm Watch

http://www.metservice.com/default/index ... stormwatch

and Weatherscape video Flybys on the local forecast pages AK/WN/CHCH (so far)

[Manukau heads obs]

cool on the thunderstorm watch
next they might be sending us out as severe storm spotters

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Why have a Severe Thunderstorm Watch?
We don't get those in Canterbury? ...and possibly not any more in areas which have been ravidged by tornadoes recently???

JohnGaul
NZTS

[winzurf]

There are now Weatherscape fly-by video clips al la TV for the main centres and also the ski field regions on the web site.
regards
Bruce

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

that's nice

JohnGaul
NZTS

[southernthrash]

also started forecasting daily snow accumulation for skifields.

[TokWW]

I like their 10 Day Farming Forecasts by Region eg the Waikato one here... only website that mentions wind direction and velocity more than the others...

Interesting display of the next three days with graphical presentation of temp, rain (histograms) and wind direction - across the top -

http://www.metservice.com/default/index ... armwaikato

Not sure if others have seen this for their regions?


I also use MetVuw quite a bit to see the whatifs with the forecast maps...

[southernthrash]

Yea the rural forecast is alwasy interesting, and i like the rainfall model, but the 10 day outlook is always so changeable, is it really worthwhile them issuing such forecasts?

[TokWW]

You can have two cycles passing in that time... so it will be hard to predict out after 5 or 6 days and into the second cycle

[southernthrash]

exactly, you would hope no one puts to much faith in those forecasts when planning farm business.

[winzurf]

Im a consumer, not a forecaster - but I would have said that anything which improves my ability to make the right call is useful, even if its only a marginal improvement. If we limited ourselves to only looking at forecast data (in any context, not just weather) with greater than (say) 80% probability theres an awful lot of information that would be ignored. Even something that is right 55% of the time is more useful than nothing - just add it to the mix and treat it with the appropriate degree of caution.