NZ Weather Forum

Hey there,

During the winter I use the metservice rain radar about 5 times a day. Only gripe is its only updated every hour, why can't they update it every 6 mins?

Anyone know a better way? How much does it cost to set up a local rain radar for an area,eg just the north shore?

Thanks

Dane

http://www.keriboi.co.nz weather

Hi keriboi, unfortunately you will have to buy into one of the Met Service products to get more regular radar.

yeah, I contacted them, but $300 a month is too much :0

Cheers
Dane

I think the tax payer would get better value for money by making the radar free to all. I can imagine the public making better use of them with free 5 minute updates.

Wasnt it created about 1992 as an SOE to make money?

keriboi wrote:yeah, I contacted them, but $300 a month is too much :0

Cheers
Dane

That's because it comes laced with the other stuff metconnect provides.

I contacted them a few months ago and they said they were intending to tether the radar images away from the package.

but how much would that cost?

Wasnt it created about 1992 as an SOE to make money?

Yes. But the radars would be put to a lot better use by having free access.

NZstorm wrote:
Yes. But the radars would be put to a lot better use by having free access.

Totally agree, but M/S is a business and they dont want to give away anything free of charge.

One thing that really really bothers me is that radars are funded by us yet MS (a private company) can exploit the radars that the tax payer paid for and sell the data back to the tax payer for a premium!!!!!
So really what they are doing atm is getting lots of $$$$ for something we all essentially payed for.
It would be a different story if MS owned the radars themselves.

Might be worth while to write to the goverment about this and stop the monopoly going on here.......

You'll be p#!^%$g in the wind here!,they be getting dividends also they never listen,even a french style rally like whats happening there wont change their minds.

Tornado Tim wrote:Might be worth while to write to the goverment about this and stop the monopoly going on here.......

Michael wrote:You'll be p#!^%$g in the wind here!]

Don't do that otherwize a radar may pick it up and you may get false readings, this depending onhowbig your bladder is
i sometimes wonder what those yellow marks were on the radar?

JohnGaul
NZThS

The cheeky thing to do would be to find someone else who has metconnect (specifically who's subscription covers the area of the radar you want), and see if you could... borrow the login details.

Updates on the radar are every 7.5mins. A scan on the radars takes 7 minutes, and there's a 30 second period in each scan to allow for spin-up and spin-down, and in case any motors are getting worn etc, for the radar to finish its scan if its a little on the slow side of things.

If you ever get the chance to go and be nosey and look at one, do. If anyone in Invercargill wants to look at the one down here, lemme know.

Looks as if they will get cobwebs on them given that the weather pattern over the forseeable period

Michael wrote:Looks as if they will get cobwebs on them given that the weather pattern over the forseeable period

Talking about Radars, Te Radar is appearing in Rolleston shortly.
I wonder what he thinks?

JohnGaul
NZThS

keriboi wrote:yeah, I contacted them, but $300 a month is too much :0

Cheers
Dane

Simple solution

We form a weather network company with say 300 members, the company pays them $300 a month and the members each pay $1 per month to the company

kaimaikid wrote:

keriboi wrote:yeah, I contacted them, but $300 a month is too much :0

Cheers
Dane

Simple solution

We form a weather network company with say 300 members, the company pays them $300 a month and the members each pay $1 per month to the company

Where is the 300 members who want to pay coming from?

Tornado Tim wrote:Where is the 300 members who want to pay coming from?

I'd be one if it was legal and we had the numbers... (Wishful thinking I know).

Tornado Tim wrote: Where is the 300 members who want to pay coming from?

Geeees sounds like someone with a dose of NO IMAGINATION !!!

It was said as a candid comment but in reality there's no reason why a smaller group couldn't do something like that as I would imagine that if a sailing or a gliding club signed up for the service their members would have access to the info....

kaimaikid wrote: Geeees sounds like someone with a dose of NO IMAGINATION !!!

It was said as a candid comment but in reality there's no reason why a smaller group couldn't do something like that as I would imagine that if a sailing or a gliding club signed up for the service their members would have access to the info....

I like the idea and all but in reality would Metservice allow it or would we be able to get enough ppl on board to make it viable? ........
If so count me in but im not holding my breath.........

Tahii wrote:The cheeky thing to do would be to find someone else who has metconnect (specifically who's subscription covers the area of the radar you want), and see if you could... borrow the login details.

Updates on the radar are every 7.5mins. A scan on the radars takes 7 minutes, and there's a 30 second period in each scan to allow for spin-up and spin-down, and in case any motors are getting worn etc, for the radar to finish its scan if its a little on the slow side of things.

If you ever get the chance to go and be nosey and look at one, do. If anyone in Invercargill wants to look at the one down here, lemme know.

Had a look through the one at Mamkau above Rotorua when they were finishing it off.

M/S has now posted a Blog about state of the radars and why we dont get them free in realtime:
http://blog.metservice.com/2010/10/weat ... /#comments

The radars are partly funded by the NZ government and partly by our customers e.g television, large construction firms, industry groups, local government etc etc. If the radars were fully funded by the government we would give everything away for free, but we can’t do this as we would lose all external revenue and this would end up costing the tax-payer more. If you did the financial analysis the best decision would be to fully government fund the radars and provide all data for free, assuming NZ would benefit, BUT this also assumes our government has endless amounts of money. Now I am not a politician but I know they don’t have endless amounts of money so if we receive more, someone else has to miss out. I do believe that when we are in better times that we will get funding to complete the Weather Radar Network.

Hang on here so what I have got from this is if it was all government funded they still wouldn't provide it free in realtime as they would loose more income.

For crying out loud put the citizens of NZ first before business profit!
I am sure people would have found a realtime radar data useful when the Waikato got clobbering from heaps of thunderstorms in late Jan this year.

If you look at the last sentence in blue he says they will complete the radar network in better times but never say anything about getting the radar free in realtime.

Man is wish M/S wasn't so business orientated, it would be much better if it was a government department.

Michaels comment about pissing in the wind is pretty accurate as they wont under both situations give it away for free.

Sounds like a lot of bullshit to me! If that were the case, we would have had all these wonderful upgrades done during the "good times", remember them?

If you take a step back, it makes perfect sense. Ultimately, its through the commercial users of MetConnect that the Metservice is able to build these systems. If they go and make all the data public, thats one hell of an income stream lost, and therefore, no more radars.

Our radar down here in Invercargill, while very well maintained, is approaching 30 years old! At some point its going to need replaced (or another installed for rain radar, and use current for Upper Air Obs only, rather than taking the current one offline), and they'll need funding to do that.

Money doesn't grow on trees.

I doubt there is much money being made from the radars.

NZstorm wrote:I doubt there is much money being made from the radars.

I agree, most of the money they get will be coming from Metra which is sold worldwide.

Hi guys, I posted a reply to the above metservice blog entry. Check the blog for their reply:

http://blog.metservice.com/2010/10/weather-radars/

I would disagree with their comment that people in NZ generally want everything for free whereas Europeans are more willing to pay for this sort of stuff. But let's leave this aside, as it's a bit of a tangent.

It's seems as if a sticking point is working out how many people would be willing to pay a moderate amount (but much less than $300 per month) for high frequency, high resolution radar images, to make a such a product "pay".

Of course, it is a bit chicken and egg here. Firstly, what would this "moderate" amount be? $10 per month, $20 per month? Perhaps someone could set-up an online vote on this forum, with some realistic price bands and get a view on the maximum people might be willing to pay per month? Say <-$10; $10-$15; $15-$20; $20-$25; $25->. Personally, I would be fine with $15-20 per month. regards, Jeremy