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Last Friday MetService issued a rain warning for Northland and Far North Mayor Wayne Brown is furious claiming that the heavy rain warning stopped thousands of holiday makers going to Northland. Mr Brown says he’s received complaints from camp ground and motel owners saying they were down 25% from being fully booked before the warnings were issued.

When Mr Brown asked MetService spokesperson Peter Kreft for an apology he wasn’t given one. “We are very mindful of people making decisions based on our forecasts. Fishermen, businesses and tourists are on our minds every time a forecast is issued” said Kreft.

This year we have had a terrible amount of weather related deaths in New Zealand. In fact it’s something that we should be incredibly ashamed of as almost all of them were avoidable if people understood the weather better or took warnings more seriously.

I’ve been accused by a lot of people for being sensational – and yes, when I believe in my heart that something big poses ‘a serious threat to properties or lives’ I will go all out and promote this. On Friday I certainly didn’t feel that the rain warning was even really worth mentioning. In fact the Herald commented to me on Friday noting that I wasn’t really talking about the rain warnings. My reply was that I thought the low was moving too quickly for it to warrant me talking about it in my Friday weather blog – instead I talked about the weather “not being perfect” and “a great weekend to get out into the garden” and that Monday was looking great across the country.”

MetService gets it wrong – the Weather Watch Centre gets it wrong – all forecasters get it wrong from time to time. But we (the forecasters) need to be transparent and we need to have weather presenters who can clearly explain systems.

Sometimes headlines look sensational and, as Mayor Brown says, people don’t read the small print. They read the headline “Storm on the way” for example. The late Augie Auer wasn’t the most popular weather presenter but I very much respected him – he was my all time favourite. Why? Well if you remove his cheesy and iconic “ditto day” line he was full of substance. I imagine if he had been working on Friday night he would’ve said “MetService has issued this rain warning for Northland predicting up to 70mm, now if you’re going tramping keep an eye on it but for the rest of you it should pass over during the night and Saturday’s looking not too bad”. No other weather presenters do this – they read the forecasts given to them by MetService.

If I give my weather colleague Richard Green a forecast and he’s interviewed by Newstalk ZB I am more than happy for him to say “Well the Weather Watch Centre is predicting a big cold snap, but ya know I’m from Christchurch and I just think the worst might miss us for these reasons…”. A forecast is not a statement – it’s a living breathing thing that is updated constantly.

Weather is also not an exact science – if it was we would respect all weather forecasts 100%. The Weather Watch Centre wouldn’t need a “We Got it Wrong Policy”…where we’ll always fess up if we made a mistake – or at least explain why conditions didn’t match our forecast. MetService don’t have this “informal” side to them – which brings me to the real problem here.

I don’t think MetService needs to apologise – but I do think they need to make the most of private forecasters such as the Weather Watch Centre – and any other private weather forecasters/knowledgeable presenters. If they work with us, we can be their voice. But MetService is oddly very heavily commercial and closely guard products (such as the rain radar and lightning detectors) which limits media outlets being able to say “Well yes there’s a rain warning but as you can see there isn’t much out there”. This is what they do in Australia, America, Canada, even Cuba! 

At the end of the day MetService is the state owned forecaster – they are not the media. (Unlike weather.com or accuweather.com in America who are private forecasters but also have their own 24/7 weather TV channels and websites…if an “official” warning from the Govt forecaster comes through, they will explain the likelihood of that warning being “damaging or just a nuisance”. It’s a far more accurate way of broadcasting official government weather warnings.).

MetService has to rely on other organisations to present their product – that’s a big risk to take especially if you have a weather presenter on TV or an announcer on radio, or a journalist in the paper who just doesn’t “get it”. They perhaps don’t understand the mechanics of weather and think that a weather warning for Northland should be a major headline, and unless you know your stuff you can’t decipher between a low risk and a serious threat.

The weather presenters on TV1 are much more than just presenters – they are experts, so my advice to TVNZ is to use that skill – that is TV1’s unique selling point when it comes to their weather product – Jim and Karen understand the weather thoroughly – and I’d love to hear more of their own opinion in the same way Augie used to, I don’t just want to hear MetService talking points which are in all the other weather bulletins in the NZ media.

Now last Friday I was certainly saying we were in for a windy, showery and cold start to Labour Weekend (depending on where you were) – the only emphasis I put into heavy rain was warning “trampers and those heading outdoors” to be “aware” of any warnings. I didn’t want to see anyone getting washed away, but it was clear to me on Friday that the rain band was just that – a band of overnight rain – which is why I didn’t think it was worth mentioning in great detail…that WOULD have been sensationalising.

We linked to our weather warnings page at NewstalkZB.co.nz and that was about it. In fact, out emphasis on the Labour Weekend weather was the cold snap for regions from Wellington southwards.

 

Philip Duncan writes a regular blog at NZHerald.co.nz. To read Philip’s other weather blogs click here.