2013 was a big year for WeatherWatch.co.nz with our regular web traffic growing to half a million people a year and the New Zealand Government hiring us for our unique rain reports.

Droughts, tornados and thunderstorms across the country, coupled with wild wind storms in Canterbury and Wellington, saw WeatherWatch.co.nz hit 4.2 million pageviews this year – a record for our ‘small’ website.

The main weather event this year would have to be the drought – which affected farms and water tanks right across New Zealand, mostly the North Island.  This focus went to zeroing in on every single drop of rain – no longer was “A few showers” acceptable in a forecast unless we could clearly explain the chance of rain, the type of rain and specifically where it might fall.

Our team of forecasters found this pressure the most intense we’ve had in the several years of running WeatherWatch.co.nz – but the hard work paid off, with the Ministry for Primary Industries hiring us for our unique rain reports over March and April this year – and praised us for a job well done afterwards.

Not long after that NIWA – a Crown Research Institute – surprised us by proactively offering to give WeatherWatch.co.nz their rain maps to help the NZ public better plan their days. This will begin in the first quarter of 2014 we hope.  

NIWA CEO John Morgan praised our communication skills and unique weather products – these compliments following the sometimes public data battles we have had with MetService was a boost to us here at WeatherWatch – and we feel vindicated for our fights to free up more public weather data as more and more Government departments and institutes see our value.

But, as it is every year, it’s you – the public – who bring this website to life with your incredible photos, videos, comments and questions.  Our Facebook page has close to 14,000 likes and Twitter 5000 – and in 2014 we have plans to intergrate the live storm tracking we do on Facebook and Twitter into our main website and app. This will be an exciting development.

Our ratings this year have been very strong and continue to grow as thousands of people download our free app – for iphone, android – and before Christmas an update for tablets too.

From everyone here at WeatherWatch.co.nz we wish you all very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a sensational summer!

Here are our stats for 2013, thanks to Google Analytics

• 520.000 people visited WeatherWatch this year
• 2 million visits
• 4.2 million page views
• 76% are returning customers
• Busiest 24 hour period: Wednesday June 19th:  37,366 visits

– WeatherWatch.co.nz