Metservice Website in the News

[Kim]

Hi All,

First time post so I might as well make it semi sensible....

Driving home from work tonight about quarter past five and Radio New Zealand were interviewing the Chief Information Officer from the Metservice (Can't remember his name). It was an interesting conversation mainly based around the website and its increased popularity as an important medium for getting up to date information. They spoke about the average numbers of visits to the site a week, about 400,000 sessions and how it peaked at 800,000 for the last week as the storm approached. They also touched on the troubles people had accessing the site on Saturday to track the storm. The CIO did make mention of long term planning to improve the site when under heavy loading, so it’s definitely not a quick fix but is on the cards.

My interpretation is that they are generally pleased with how the website operates and that the problems that were experienced last weekend are considered minor and not to much of an issue.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Kim

[sw_windbow]

Several thousand of those weekly views will be me looking at the 3 and 7 day rain forecast models. I'm addicted to them.

[jamie]

Weather fullstop is addictive

I think it was of concern that we were unable to access the site properly in the event of the bomb. What saved them from being torn apart by the media and us, i feel is, that they did such a good job of forecasting this thing and getting the info out early that, even though the site wasnt working 100% it did not matter too much.
Should still be of concern (which it sounds like it is to them) and they are doing the right thing by trying to fix the problem.

Just my thoughts

[tgsnoopy]

Not being able to get current information during an event like that is huge.

I'm very dissapointed they seem to be playing it down.

At least it seems they are planning an upgrade, perhaps they should speed the process up after what just happened.

[ricky]

Sorry to be a bit Off Topic but I was amazed at the big load on my weather site here too! on the scale of a tiny site anyway.
It brought the server to a crawl at times.. 1.2 G transferred for that day

[LaundryQueen]

I know I certainly kept looking at the Grey Lynn weather site for updated wind speed and direction about every 30 minutes on Saturday, it's tremendous info - thanks for the service.

[nzlizzie]

I heard the Radio NZ interview last night and was a little disappointed at Metservice's attitude. They provide a great service and their website is very good but it needs to be available during 'weather events' to cater to the increased interest from the public (at least until the power fails). I would like to see more commitment to upgrading their site.

Incidentally, although I show as only joining on Saturday, I was a member under the old site, but forgot my usename and normally prefer to remain a frequent browser rather than contributor. You are the experts, not me. I use both this site and Metservice on a regular basis. Both are great, so keep up the good work.

[tgsnoopy]

I see it seems that the Metservice site has once again fallen over from high demand.

This isn't good enough!

[jrj]

I tend to agree!

[Razor]

I posted on this on Saturday. My opinion remains unchanged, it is a disgrace to have the website crash when so many people are looking for important information

[Inny Binny]

M/S site very slow again today.

[tgsnoopy]

If you have been successful getting a page to load, then consider yourself lucky. For me, they occasionally start, but never load enough to be useful. The only thing that seems to load is the friggen advert

[Manukau heads obs]

if you leave the page long enough it does eventualy load
trying to refresh the page all the time will just put more pressure on the server
about the only advice I can give

[trickytiger]

metservice site has been running almost fine for me today, getting the odd timeout but nothing like what it was like in the weekend.

[nzlizzie]

Agree with trickytiger that the site is running 'almost fine' today. Very slow to load, but does eventually. But trying to move around the site sometimes becomes unobtainable. Let's hope it doesn't get worse later.

[Razor]

I've tried 3 times this afternoon and its failed to open on each occasion. Giving it plenty of time, not refreshing etc still no good

[Manukau heads obs]

it does load the page I select, but I do have time to make a cup of coffe or read other web sites waiting for it....it does eventualy load...if people keep trying to refresh the page its ultimately just going to make it slower....just my thoughts

[Vertigo]

brian, firefox (and maybe other browsers) has a timeout of about 10-15 seconds, after which itll stop trying to load, so waiting wont always achieve results

[Manukau heads obs]

ah,ok
I use IE7
( I use to like firefox)

[trickytiger]

I also use IE7, I find that sometimes sites don't always load properly in firefox when a site is overloading although it really depends on how the browser is configured and firefox does have a lot of settings you can tweak.

[David]

For those having trouble with the metservice site, I copied the NZ forecasts, warnings and thunderstorm outlook here for you to view:

http://howickwx.googlepages.com/metservicecontent2

I'm using firefox and it loads fine.

[tgsnoopy]

If it was simply a case of having patience I wouldn't be complaining. It simply hasn't been working or only partially loads, thus making it totally useless.

In any case, it is not acceptable under the current circumstances, to not be able to obtain current weather data from their website.

I tried a couple of different operating systems and several different browsers.

[Razor]

Right.

I am officially losing my patience with the metservice. I have a job that is assisted by information being provided from our taxpayer funded meteorogical service provider. It seems whenever this info is really needed it is hard to access.

I am unable to source the required information in the most logicval manner ie online, in an even remotely timely manner- for 4 of the last 5 days. unless of course I pay for it commercially (which kind of defeats the whole taxpayer funding thing)

If anyone from the metservice is reading this, and this message comes from a large chunck of the South Island High Country fraternity also, ....PLEASE SORT IT OUT!

Immensely frustrated.

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

yes, its totally rubbish last couple of days. Not good enough!!

[David]

Right.
I am officially losing my patience with the metservice. I have a job that is assisted by information being provided from our taxpayer funded meteorogical service provider.

What info do you want? I seem to be able to get in at the moment.