Your taxes may fund two Government forecasters but WeatherWatch.co.nz has just launched New Zealand’s largest free and live weather observations network.

Thanks to many New Zealanders who have supported the global initiative by Wunderground (Which WeatherWatch.co.nz has a business partnership with) we can now display live weather observations from up and down New Zealand.

It includes official New Zealand data (which MetService delay for commercial reasons) but it’s surrounded by all the details Kiwi’s have been missing out on for decades. Basically now you can work out just how cold or hot it really was where you live – and less reliant on the delayed tax funded data MetService and NIWA release once it’s lost it’s value.

We understand this network isn’t perfect – which is why we’ve worked hard to develop a “Report” button so you too can help fix any erroneous data. If we all work together we can create a better system.

A monumental thank you to Wunderground for helping us with this project, Philip Kent our digital expert for making it happen, and to all of you hard working New Zealanders who take the time and effort to connect to this network.

Things can only improve from here on – and fingers crossed the current Government (and Minister Paul Goldsmith) free up more data we all own here in New Zealand as our Government officially investigates just why both NIWA and Metservice are 100% taxpayer owned but heavily restrict open data unlike anywhere else in the western world.

Just look for the GREEN Live Observations link at the top of our homepage. This is only available via our website not our app (but we will look to fix this once we get more resources!).

www.weatherwatch.co.nz/observations

– WeatherWatch.co.nz