Value To N.Z. Of Weather Reports From Antarctica
Meteorological reports from the Antarctic were of very little use in day-to-day weather forecasting for New Zealand, said Mr J. A. Hunter, chief meteorological officer of the Meteorological Service in Canterbury, in a talk to the Canterbury Mountaineering Club last evening. “I can’t see any use for it at all for New Zealand,” said Mr Hunter. “That is not to say that Antarctic reports are
not of use to South American countries which project further south.” He said the New Zealand Meteorological Service's official view was that the worth of Antarctic observations had not been proved to its satisfaction.
Mr Hunter said the gap in New Zealand meteorological surveys was in the South Tasman, where there was little shipping. If New Zealand and Australia pooled their resources they could probably afford one weather ship, but then there would be as dispute as to where it should be placed. New Zealand would be served best by a weather ship below the South Australian Bight, and Australian forecasters would want it wert of Perth.
The World Meteorological Organisation now showed signs of stepping in, and at the prompting of the United Nations it had investigated the availability of weather reports around the world, and the methods of supplementing them by weather ships. Mr Hunter said that two such ships had been recommended for the area south of Australia. “That will come one day,” he said, “and then one of our best excuses for wrong forecasting will have been removed.”
There was no way of checking accurately what proportion of forecasts were correct, but probably about 80 per cent were "not bad.” The 20 per cent of forecasts that were misleading could be attributed to the “moods" of the weather.
“We don’t do too badly when we catch on,” said Mr Hunter, "but too many of our forecasts miss when we fail to check the change of mood.” He said forecasting would never be 100 per cent right
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Press, Volume CII, Issue 30264, 17 October 1963, Page 19
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333Value To N.Z. Of Weather Reports From Antarctica Press, Volume CII, Issue 30264, 17 October 1963, Page 19
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