Back in late Autumn, in May, WeatherWatch.co.nz told the Ministry for Primary Industries the ‘autumn or spring-like pattern of westerlies’ for Canterbury would continue well into winter, meaning we went on the record to disagree with NIWA’s wet outlook for Canterbury.

Now in winter’s final month NIWA has changed their forecast for the drought hit region, removing their wetter than average forecast and replacing it with the same one WeatherWatch.co.nz has had since Autumn – that a drier than average outlook is likely.

NIWA has also admitted that even if normal rainfall arrives, soil moisture levels will remain below average – simply because the region has been in deficit for so long.

The news will be disappointing for farmers and growers needing rain, who were banking that NIWA’s wet outlook was based on their special super computer that they don’t make public.  

Despite the ongoing historical drought in Canterbury NIWA predicted two months ago Canterbury’s rain will be “where it should be, or greater than it should be” this winter. Last month a NIWA forecaster went out of his way to say “…in other words, another way of looking at it, a drier than usual winter seems pretty unlikely [in Canterbury]”.

NIWA receives 100 million dollars a year in tax funding and is now directly competing with MetService – which is leading the Government to an official investigation, as NIWA’s focus appears to be more about being aggressively commercial than providing services for the public.

Last month WeatherWatch.co.nz received a legal threat from NIWA for being transparent and highlighting that their soil moisture maps did not match up with their forecasts. Editors from major news outlets have told WeatherWatch.co.nz they would “laugh” if a Government Agency tried to dictate what was and was not newsworthy – especially when trying to bring accountability and transparency. So far the Minister has also avoided supporting the legal threat.  In fact, NIWA has actively ignored Ministerial requests for NIWA to work with WeatherWatch.co.nz in the past few weeks – highlighting how commercially aggressive NIWA is becoming these days.

– Image / NIWA’s soil moisture anomaly map shows how the westerly flow is keeping the east dry / NIWA / NZ taxpayer

– WeatherWatch.co.nz