Weather forecasts

Press, 13 July 1988, Page 18

Weather forecasts

Sir, —On June 29 it was reported that many weather stations were closing as a result of the user-pays system. Would now not be the time to close down the Meteorological Service completely and thereby save

even further Government spending? New Zealand is far too small a country to forecast the weather accurately and the acceptance of the Meteorological Service’s performance by the public has long been a mystery to me. If the forecast is listened to at the same time each day it will be found that, on average, only two out of five are correct. This is not only for Canterbury but for most of the country. I recently completed an 11-month tour of the whole country by caravan and kept a record of forecasts during this period. On average the Meteorological Service has a success rate of around 40 per cent. This surely is not good enough and no amount of additional equipment, or weather stations, will improve it. The amounts that could be saved by ceasing the service would be considerable. — Yours, etc., D. BARKER. July 4, 1988.

[Mr H. A. L. Osborne, of the Christchurch Weather Centre, replies: “The New Zealand Meteorological Service monitors its weather forecasts and, on average, we find a success rate of 75 to 80 per cent for one to two-day forecasts. Sometimes the complexities of the atmosphere give us a bad run and the rate is not so high; at other times it is better. I am sorry D. Barker found a very low success rate on a recent tour. Although it sounds simple, it is actually quite a difficult problem to mark forecasts as to their accuracy. Sometimes part of a forecast is a little bit out. Does this make the whole forecast wrong? Not knowing the occasions involved I cannot really comment on them. However, it is certain that closing down the New Zealand Meteorological Service would be a very backward step. As a recent very good editorial in ‘The Press’ showed, our annual budget is minuscule, and the returns from that expenditure are of great benefit to the community at large. We are also doing our bit to help keep taxes down by charging for some of our services. These are specialised services giving ‘accurate, precise information detailed to specific users’ needs,’ to quote another recent letter. We have, of course, provided such services for a long time now and, with the sort of resources we have, can usually do this to a level which smaller consultants would find difficult to match. To cease all these services by shutting the Meteorologcal Service down would have some very adverse effects on the economic activity of many organisations and businesses.”]