In a story in the Dominion Post this morning MetService has come out personally attacking WeatherWatch.co.nz, Philip Duncan and Auckland Civil Defence and Council for trying to free up the most basic weather data from our publicly owned weather forecaster – and have completely ignored the ground swell of support from the public for us to do this.

MetService made double record profits last year, which would be fine had they not also been blocking the most basic of weather data which is a public safety and general economic issue.  MetService say they aren’t blocking data but this week Auckland Civil Defence came out and publicly backed WeatherWatch.co.nz in this widely supported effort to free up our nation’s most basic weather data.

However this morning MetService has said both Philip Duncan and the council have an agenda of self interest due to our commercial relationship – which is utterly misleading and ignores the fact MetService has a commercial contract with Civil Defence also – and that their meteorologists actually sit inside Auckland Civil Defence’s office.  

MetService is also ignoring the major reason why WeatherWatch.co.nz is taking on board all this stress – because many private and public businesses and many in the general public have for a decade been asking us to do this.

“This is really dirty tactics by MetService and shows just how incredibly profit focused our state owned forecaster has become. There is a reason this doesn’t happen in Australia, Canada and the US where the public forecaster is just that – a forecaster for the public” says WeatherWatch.co.nz head weather analyst Philip Duncan.

READ THE DOMINION POST STORY HERE – by Matt Stewart

– WeatherWatch.co.nz