july 1 1992 1992 07 01 ; 24 years ago preceding agency new zealand meteorological service headquarters wellington new zealand employees 215 agency executives anthony howard chair peter lennox chief executive website www.metservice.com view of the metservice building in the wellington botanic garden from tinakori hill meteorological service of new zealand limited metservice was established as a state owned enterprise in 1992 . it employs about 215 staff and its headquarters are in wellington new zealand . prior to becoming an soe new zealand s national meteorological service has existed in a number of forms since the appointment of the country s first director of meteorological stations in august 1861 . as new zealand s national meteorological service metservice produces and issues forecasts and official weather warnings on behalf of new zealand s ministry of transport and is certified by the civil aviation authority of new zealand . international media aviation and energy business is conducted under the metraweather brand . metservice has been certified to the iso 9001 standard since november 1995 . contents 1 history 2 world meteorological organization 3 weather forecasts for new zealand 4 metraweather 5 the pacific 6 numerical weather prediction 7 see also 8 references 9 external links history edit the weather forecasting service began in 1861 when a spate of shipwrecks prompted the government to start a storm warning service as part of the then marine department . forecasting remained a marine service until 1926 when it became part of the newly formed department of scientific and industrial research . at the outbreak of world war two in 1939 forecasting became part of the royal new zealand air force . the focus on aviation continued with a move in 1964 to the then department of civil aviation which in 1968 became part of a new super ministry the ministry of transport . during the 1980s there was increasing pressure on government funding for meteorology in new zealand together with a government wide move to user pays for specialised services and to more autonomy and accountability for government departments . 1 a combination of commercial competition in the deregulated market for meteorological services and reform of publicly funded science led to the establishment of metservice as a state owned enterprise on 1 july 1992 . 1 in 2013 metservice invested in a 49 % shareholding in metocean solutions limited a new zealand oceanographic services company . metocean is an established company specialising in oceanographic analysis for research and forecasting for many purposes including ports off shore oil & gas industries and surfers . 2 world meteorological organization edit the world s national meteorological and hydrological services work with the world meteorological organization wmo a specialised agency of the united nations . as part of the wmo world weather watch metservice sends observational data gathered from the new zealand region to other wmo member countries around the world . this is used as input to computer models of the weather at the world s major numerical weather prediction centres . metservice operates a data collection network within new zealand . it complies with recognised international standards as prescribed by the wmo over and around new zealand . in particular data are collected through surface observations over new zealand upper air observations using a variety of means ground based equipment aircraft weather radars voluntary observing ships a network of drifting buoys in the tasman sea . the chief executive of metservice is the permanent representative of new zealand with the wmo . weather forecasts for new zealand edit forecasts and warnings funded by the new zealand government include land basic public and mountain forecasts warnings of hazardous weather affecting land areas marine warnings of gales storms and hurricanes for new zealand s marine area of responsibility metarea xiv synopses and forecasts for new zealand s marine area of responsibility metarea xiv warnings and forecasts for coastal waters aviation icao services meteorological watch office mwo volcanic ash advisory centre vaac opmet data . metraweather edit metra information limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of meteorological service of new zealand limited and provides weather and information presentation products and services globally under the metraweather brand to energy generators combined cycle gas turbine operators hydro power operators and wind farm operators retailers and network managers television stations via the weatherscape xt weather presentation system print media newspapers and magazines mobile communications operators . the pacific edit metservice maintains close links with the meteorological agencies of various pacific island states . all warnings of hazardous weather for the south pacific region normally received from the regional specialized meteorological center in nadi fiji are forwarded to radio new zealand international and to the ministry of foreign affairs and trade . metservice provides backup for the main warning and forecasting responsibilities of the regional specialized meteorological center in nadi fiji should that centre temporarily shut down or be cut off possibly due to a direct hit by a cyclone . they also take over primary warning responsibility should a cyclone move to the south of 25s . numerical weather prediction edit the cooperative relationship among the world s national meteorological services enables the sharing of much weather information including the output from global numerical weather prediction nwp models . meteorologists at metservice routinely use information from the world s major modelling centres for day to day production of forecasts and weather warnings . the global models that metservice uses generally provide reliable forecasts of weather features like highs and lows over forecast periods of several days ; however they are less effective at predicting small scale weather features like sea breezes and localised showers . such features are often strongly affected by the local geography which tends to be poorly represented in the global models . an effective way of dealing with this problem is to use another type of nwp model known as a limited area model . metservice routinely runs a number of limited area models based on both mm5 and wrf with lateral boundary conditions provided by each of the available global models . the primary model configuration for regional forecasting in new zealand has a horizontal spacing between grid points of 12 km which allows weather features down to about 50 km wide to be represented highs and lows are thousands of kilometres wide . this domain is nested within a much larger domain of 60 km grid spacing which enables the weather to be modelled over quite a large geographical area for reasonable computational cost . see also edit 2016 17 south pacific cyclone season climate of new zealand references edit de lisle john felix . sails to satellites a history of meteorology in new zealand . history of the new zealand meteorological service from its inception through to 1985 written by a former director . while published by the then new zealand meteorological service the author states in the preface that the service which sponsored this book has had no influence upon the interpretation of historical events or the judgements made . new zealand meteorological service 1986 . isbn 0 477 07300 x a b steiner j thomas ; martin john r ; gordon d neil ; grant malcolm a september 1991 . commercialization in the provision of meteorological services in new zealand . meteorological applications . royal meteorological society . 4 3 247 257 . bibcode 1997meapp ... 4 . .247 s. doi 10.1017 s1350482797000480 . annual report 2014 metservice 18 september 2014 external links edit meteorological service of new zealand limited metraweather v t e new zealand state owned enterprises part of the public sector organisations in new zealand airways corporation animal control products asurequality electricity corporation of new zealand kiwirail kordia landcorp learning media metservice new zealand post nz rail quotable value solid energy terralink nz limited transpower v t e national meteorological organizations africa mozambique national institute of meteorology south african weather service asia afghanistan meteorological authority bangladesh meteorological department china meteorological administration central weather bureau taiwan hong kong observatory india meteorological department indonesian agency for meteorology climatology and geophysics israel meteorological service japan meteorological agency macao meteorological and geophysical bureau malaysian meteorological department philippine atmospheric geophysical and astronomical services administration hydrometeorological centre of russia pakistan meteorological department korea meteorological administration meteorological service singapore thai meteorological department turkish state meteorological service europe central institution for meteorology and geodynamics austria royal meteorological institute belgium czech hydrometeorological institute croatian meteorological and hydrological service danish meteorological institute estonian meteorological and hydrological institute finnish meteorological institute m t o france deutscher wetterdienst germany hellenic national meteorological service greece icelandic meteorological office met ireann ireland servizio meteorologico italy latvian environment geology and meteorology centre lithuanian hydrometeorological service hydrometeorological institute of montenegro royal netherlands meteorological institute norwegian meteorological institute instituto portugu s do mar e da atmosfera portugal administra ia na ional de meteorologie romania hydrometeorological centre of russia republic hydrometeorological institute of serbia slovenian environment agency agencia estatal de meteorolog a spain swedish meteorological and hydrological institute meteoswiss met office united kingdom north america caribbean institute for meteorology and hydrology regional meteorological service of canada instituto meteorol gico nacional costa rica instituto nacional de sismolog a vulcanolog a meteorolog a e hidrolog a guatemala servicio meteorol gico nacional mexico national weather service united states oceania bureau of meteorology australia fiji meteorological service meteorological service of new zealand tonga meteorological service tuvalu meteorological service south america centro de previs o do tempo e estudos clim ticos brazil institute of hydrology meteorology and environmental studies colombia instituto nacional de meteorolog a e hidrolog a ecuador intercontinental european centre for medium range weather forecasts global world meteorological organization retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title metservice & oldid 727797348 categories government owned companies of new zealandgovernmental meteorological agencies in oceaniaclimate of new zealand navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschfran aisportugu s edit links this page was last modified on 1 july 2016 at 08 50 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view