New NIWA Weather Service

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New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by Nev »

I see NIWA has a new 5-day weather forecast site for the five main centres called, 'NiwaWeather'.
It also features a nice little 2-day rainfall map (similar to MS's 3-Day one).

NIWA has also been promoting the launch of its new 'NIWA forecast' service at Mystery Creek this week - a new web-based subscription weather forecasting and information service. With data from its 230 odd rural WS's around the country processed by Fitzroy, it aims to provide farmers with climate analyses and a range of forecasts at a high 12km 'resolution' for 2 to 15 days tailored to their farms. More info here and here.
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by jamie »

yea i saw all this at the fieldays when i was there on Thursday. I forgot to mention it here. MS along with FMG are bringing out a rural weather forecast app (much like the one already out for urban areas)
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by NZstorm »

Great looking site!
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by Tornado Tim »

Very impressed with the niwaweather website, interactive and built in HTML5 :D (metservice should get a few styling hints from them)
Screen Shot 2013-06-16 at 11.14.49 AM.png
Seems to me that NIWA is now starting to compete with Metservice now. If Niwa is smart they should apply for the ministry of transport contract later, once they have all the services laid out.

Its has become very clear by NIWA doing this that they have a better management scheme and put the public more ahead of profit. Cliflo is free, now NIWA Weather is free and advertisement free, soon cliflo is expected to be in 1 min resolution soon and i think that will be free also.
Looks like they are trying to fill a gap with what metservice is providing to the public.

There would be no point in releasing these products to the public if they thought metservices products were enough.
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by NZ Thunderstorm Soc »

Yes, I saw this advertised in one of the local farmers newsletters.
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by David »

The 'sliding' weather data is a little bit laggy for me in Firefox, but it is much more responsive and smooth in Google Chrome (which I have noticed handles interactivity much better).

I wonder if the forecasts are reviewed and not just pure computer output?
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by 03Stormchaser »

I do wonder who would do the NIWA forecasts, I presume metservice wont be.

FitzRoy might be it...

He’s the 18-tonne brain behind NIWA weather’s forecasts. His real name is IBM p575 POWER6, but he prefers FitzRoy – or just ‘supercomputer’ if he’s in one of his moods.
He’s a fussy individual. He occupies a specially constructed, climate-controlled (appropriately!) room at NIWA’s site in Wellington. But we don’t mind, because he works tirelessly, 24/7, with the computational effort of about 7000 laptops. And his outputs are vitally important to all New Zealanders.

I have heard about this computer, better than what metservice have, pretty interesting technology out there these days.
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by NZstorm »

The forecast mins for Christchurch for Wednesday/Thursday look too high. They have the lowest temp at 4C.
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by jamesrobert »

What age is the website aimed at? Reads like something out of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!
I think that NIWA should stick to what they do best - providing worthless long-range forecasts to a gullible non-questioning media.
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by Orion »

I am one who understands words better than pictures... find some sites very hard to comprehend.
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by RWood »

jamesrobert wrote:What age is the website aimed at? Reads like something out of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!
I think that NIWA should stick to what they do best - providing worthless long-range forecasts to a gullible non-questioning media.
They aren't worthless, your snide reflections notwithstanding. q-
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by jamesrobert »

Yeah right...

I just hope that MetService's website is not undergoing a revamp to match..... "Kia Ora, Welcome to MetService PlaySchool"
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by avowkind »

Hi Folks, Andrew from NIWA here. (although these are my own personal comments)
I'll try to answer a few of your questions/comments:

HTML5, yes its all HTML5 and SVG. We are using D3 for the data rendering. The underlying data is obtained from our EcoConnect web services.

Target Audience - Yes its intentionally visual and minimal. The goal is an at a glance view of the day. Especially on mobile devices. Thats not to say we won't also do a more meteorological technical version - but there are lots of those around. its also designed to be easily embeddable within third party websites.

Public/Commercial - NIWA is primarily commercial and the EcoConnect system delivers a wide range of very sophisticated forecasting and observations products to those who want to pay for them. At the same time we try to deliver into the open data community useful content and services. For example we will be launching an Sensor Observation Service system shortly. This sits between the two and just is what it is.

Laggy on Firefox - this is a known problem with Firefox, sadly it is falling behind the others in javascript performance.

Written content - talk to the comms team about that. members of this forum are probably not the target audience.

Who does the forecasts - FitzRoy. There are no human forecasters adjusting the outputs as at metservice. However the forecasts are matched to observations at the stations and are very good (according to the scientists who measure the results).

Regards Andrew
comments are my own and do not represent my employer.
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by jamesrobert »

FitzRoy...... probably named after Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy RN who achieved lasting fame as the captain of HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, and as a pioneering meteorologist who made accurate weather forecasting a reality.
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by RWood »

jamesrobert wrote:Yeah right...

I just hope that MetService's website is not undergoing a revamp to match..... "Kia Ora, Welcome to MetService PlaySchool"
A troll's narrow view of the world? if you want juvenilia, look at some of the idiot "forecasters" who get prominence in the UK & the US - no direct comment regarding this country, apart from the obvious unspoken. q-
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by jamesrobert »

?
Last edited by jamesrobert on Tue 25/06/2013 08:38, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by sw_windbow »

jamesrobert wrote:FitzRoy...... probably named after Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy RN who achieved lasting fame as the captain of HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, and as a pioneering meteorologist who made accurate weather forecasting a reality.
Sure is. Quite an incredible fella, worth reading his wikipedia story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_FitzRoy
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by cantygal »

Well done NIWA. Yeah they're moving into forecasting. Impressive but no snow shown in 5 day forecasts down here? Weird??
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by Manukau heads obs »

one thing, I dont think the forecast windspeed should have a decimal place ....
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by melja »

Much better than M/S- well at the moment that's not hard without a website _b
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by Tahii »

Tornado Tim wrote:soon cliflo is expected to be in 1 min resolution soon and i think that will be free also.
Just curious to know the source of this info? NIWA appears to have removed the Metservice AWS's from the service, and I'll be damned if I run outside more than once a day to do my DLYCLI :)
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by Tornado Tim »

Tahii wrote:
Tornado Tim wrote:soon cliflo is expected to be in 1 min resolution soon and i think that will be free also.
Just curious to know the source of this info? NIWA appears to have removed the Metservice AWS's from the service, and I'll be damned if I run outside more than once a day to do my DLYCLI :)
I got a email by a niwa employee after asking if i could get live data :)
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by NZstorm »

Who does the forecasts - FitzRoy. There are no human forecasters adjusting the outputs as at metservice. However the forecasts are matched to observations at the stations
It would be interesting to know which global model/models the system is based on.
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by avowkind »

Its based on the UK Met Office models. UK MO Unified Model

https://www.niwa.co.nz/publications/wa/ ... ng-hazards
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Re: New NIWA Weather Service

Unread post by NZstorm »

Does it make sense for NIWA to be doing weather forecasting when the Met Service already cover the base? I'm thinking from the aspect of the state funding.
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