> From the WeatherWatch archives
Independently owned WeatherWatch.co.nz has had another huge year of growth, up by 166% compared to 2010, as the weather news authority creates a stronger focus on what the public want from a national weather service.
Google Analytics says WeatherWatch.co.nz has had well over 4 million page views this year, up 158% on 2010 when the site had 1.6 million.
Visits to the site are close to 2 million for 2011, up 166% on 2010 when the site didn’t even hit one million with 700,000 visits.
Head weather analyst and owner of WeatherWatch.co.nz, Philip Duncan, says the results show their forecasts are accurate, easy to understand and that WeatherWatch.co.nz “gets it” when it comes to the public – with a big focus on interaction with their readers and viewers.
“We work very hard to avoid flip flopping in our forecasts and I think that is slowly winning us more and more respect” says Mr Duncan. “We not only work hard to ensure we’re consistently accurately but always invite feedback and interact with our readers and viewers in a unique way. The WeatherWatch.co.nz community is very strong and the 5000 fans on our Facebook page are literally becoming friends with us and each other”.
WeatherWatch.co.nz’s forecasters consist of Richard Green and Philip Duncan and in January will be adding another forecaster from the US who has huge experience with extreme weather. Through the Radio Network WeatherWatch.co.nz continues to maintain eyes and ears in every main centre of New Zealand.
So what about those National Forecasts that were promised?
“As we announced a few months ago WeatherWatch.co.nz is about to launch weather forecasts nationwide. As you can appreciate this is an enormous undertaking but I’m pleased to say the pages have been built and comprehensive technical checks are now being carried out before launching in the near future”.
Mr Duncan says a Warnings page is also being built, but progress slowed this year when MetService refused to provide a data feed for all information needed to create the page. The government agreement says their warnings must be available to the public but doesn’t state on how it must be delivered. While a solution was eventually reached with the Government forecaster it does involve more work at our end to make this happen.
And WeatherWatch.co.nz heads into 2012 with two other success stories. “This year we provided a voice for everyday Kiwis who want to see real change in the weather industry, such as our successful campaign to finally free up the MetService rain radar network”.
Also in 2011 a new interactive maps page was launched at WeatherWatch.co.nz with the help of the fantastic team at MetOcean Ltd – and all maps are provided to the public for free. “Rainfall prediction maps, wind maps, swells, temperatures, sea surface temperatures, animated satellite maps – we now have the entire set, for free, at WeatherWatch.co.nz”
WeatherWatch.co.nz also continues to display New Zealand’s only free and live lightning tracker.
2011 Success Stories for WeatherWatch.co.nz
- WeatherWatch.co.nz was successful at lobbying the Government and the State Forecaster to free up the rain radar network. Their surprise u-turn decision was made just days out from the General Election and we believe it was due to the pressure put on them by WeatherWatch.co.nz and the many New Zealanders who supported us.
- Our unprecedented coverage of the Antarctic snow storm in August saw a record 130,000 visits to our website in just three days.
- Continued use of reader images on CNN International
- Continued support by the NZ media
- nzherald.co.nz weather videos launched at the start of 2011 and have been a huge success with other forecasters now copying our product.
WeatherWatch.co.nz Clients and Friends
More and more businesses are trusting WeatherWatch.co.nz services…
Current Clients…
- nzherald.co.nz
- Fonterra
- Civil Defence / Auckland Council
- Country99TV
- The Radio Network / NewstalkZB
- Herald on Sunday
We also continue to have close relationships with…
- CNN International
- Sky News/Prime
- MetOcean
- Fairfax Media /Stuff / Dominion Post
- GeoNet
- Civil Defence
- Rhema Broadcasting Group
- NIWA
- Canadian Television
- Weatherzone Australia
WeatherWatch.co.nz Ratings – courtesy of Google Analytics
Stats from Jan 1 2011 to December 12 2011
- Pageviews (impressions) – 4,213,000
- Visits – 1,840,000
- Auckland – 944,000 visits
- Unique Visits – 595,000
Most popular pages
– WeatherWatch.co.nz, Google Analytics
Comments
Before you add a new comment, take note this story was published on 14 Dec 2011.
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Add new comment
Carol on 13/12/2011 6:49pm
Congratulations for your well earned success. Your hard work is obvious, as is your passion for providing enjoyable, educational, and…..accurate information.
Hope you all can enjoy a well earned Christmas break.
Reply
Peter of Dunedin on 13/12/2011 6:44pm
Congratulations Phillip, Duncan and the team at WeatherWatch. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your refreshing approach to matters meteorological and others. I am somewhat disappointed to see that NZ Meteorological Service is not mentioned as an organisation that you have close links to – is this in fact not the case? If so, I feel that links need to be established to help give you more credibility from a meteorological point of view.
Nevertheless, thankyou for all the work you continue to do.
Reply
WW Forecast Team on 13/12/2011 7:41pm
Hi Peter – thanks for the kind words. We’ve repeatedly asked MetService to work together in a positive proactive way but we haven’t received replies from the GM of Communications since August. We also offered them an Olive branch and an offer to do lunch to smooth things over – but it’s clear they aren’t interested. We would like to work with them and hope that they recognise the challenges we’ve made to them over the year have been about the govt politics rather than individuals. We again invite them to proactively work with us – a two way street in the interests of public safety – in 2012.
– WW
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Text Alert on 13/12/2011 8:48am
Congratulations Philip and team. It gives us even more faith in our choice to use your service when we launch next year. Keep it up.
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Guest on 13/12/2011 8:25am
Great site and great content. Well done 🙂
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Guest on 13/12/2011 7:55am
Not much to say except well done and well deserved. I hope the growth continues.
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Sue on 13/12/2011 7:40am
HI Phil and the Team
Well done on your achievements! Im an online adult educator here in NZ and really like the communication and collaboration element that you weave into your weatherwatch reporting and the diversity that you bring to this site.
I must admit that it is nice to see a weather site that combines news elements of an environmental nature that you can observe without the clutter apparent on news sites that incorporate societial and political news items as well.
Being a person that is fundamentally focused on nature this “one stop shop” approach that you guys take of environmental news – weather – communication and collaboration, and the fact that you have international followers interacting in your forums is fantastic.
There are a couple of other online educational tools that you might want to incorporate at some point to boost your communication/collaboration element – if you ever want to chat about that please dont hesitate to email me.
A very merry xmas and a happy new year to you all. Well done!
Cheers
Sue
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Derek on 12/12/2011 11:09pm
Well deserved to you all at WW, all the changes you have successfully achieved in the last 12 months, they are something to be proud of. Very well done. I am looking forward to the national forecasts but one of my favorites is the educational part with the explanations of how & why. You make it so easy & enjoyable to read.
Good luck for the future. Merry Christmas to you all at WW.
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Guest on 12/12/2011 10:36pm
Well done to all who have created the Weatherwatch website, and made it all that it is today. You can all take pride in what you have achieved. May the success continue into the future.
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