Weather forecasts: MetService v Niwa; WeatherWatch founder Philip Duncan speaks out as Government steps in - Media Insider with Shayne Currie

Exclusive: The Government is stepping in over a messy conflict between the MetService and Niwa - it is seeking advice over NZ’s weather forecast systems, amid concerns about mixed and confusing messages for the public during major weather events. MetService has also spoken out, saying in severe weather, it is the agency that Kiwis should be turning to. What’s created this storm?

Minutes before he fronted a special Cyclone Gabrielle weather video, Philip Duncan was physically sick.

“That was by far the most stressful weather event I’ve ever covered,” says the WeatherWatch founder and boss. “That afternoon I threw up before I did the video because I knew I was about to say something I’ve never said before. That this could be deadly – one of the worst storms on record to come into the north of the country.”

As we now know, Gabrielle’s destructive power wreaked havoc in Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne, parts of Coromandel and in the west coast Auckland settlements of Muriwai, Karekare and Piha. Eleven people were killed; hundreds of homes and livelihoods were damaged or destroyed.

For companies such as privately owned WeatherWatch – and the media – audience interest in the weather has been at a record high. As Gabrielle swept through the North Island in February, nzherald.co.nz recorded the biggest daily online audience for any local news platform for any event, including Covid outbreaks and the 2022 Parliament protest.

But it has also renewed questions over why we have two major, publicly owned bodies, MetService and Niwa (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research), competing to provide forecasts - and who the media should be using.

A MetService video forecast. Picture / Met Service

A Niwa video forecast. Picture / Niwa

Philip Duncan and a WeatherWatch video forecast. Picture / WeatherWatch

Duncan, who set up privately owned WeatherWatch 16 years ago, says it’s leading to confusion and mixed messages for the public.

“There’s no other country on Earth that’s got two government departments competing in weather, commercially. They’re not even working together, they don’t like each other. They don’t use the same technology. It is so ridiculous.”

Duncan also worries about the language Niwa uses in its forecasts - he describes it as “very Americanised”.

“The terminology is not New Zealand terminology. The term ‘atmospheric river’ is ridiculously overused. I saw a climate scientist having a go on Twitter the other day about the use of the term. He was politely disagreeing that it was one.

“I think that they use very Americanised terms which are big and loud and get them into the news.”

Niwa is a Crown research institute, set up with a broader climate research mandate in the early 1990s. MetService is a state-owned enterprise tasked with providing weather forecasting, updates and warnings.

Both have commercial frameworks to a lesser or greater extent, but report to different government ministers and have always been uneasy bedfellows. What once might have been a clear differentiation is now foggy at best. MetService has previously complained to Treasury that “it began encountering Niwa as an active competitor in the late 2000s”.

The two agencies charge third parties for their data - for example, the Herald pays a fee to the MetService for its daily print and digital weather pages. In late 2020, Niwa won a reasonably lucrative contract off MetService to provide forecasts to the Department of Conservation.

As we reveal today, the Government is now seeking advice on its weather forecasting systems. In response to written questions, State-Owned Enterprises Minister Duncan Webb told the Herald: “There is always the opportunity to improve our systems.”

“A robust, accurate and reliable forecasting system is critical for New Zealand. MetService and Niwa are critical for this,” said Webb. “I am aware of the dynamic relationship between the organisations. MetService and Niwa are limited in their ability to collaborate under current settings as both organisations act in accordance with their mandates under the State-Owned Enterprises and the Crown Research Institutes Acts.

“There is always the opportunity to improve our systems. A connected weather forecasting system integrated with our understanding of the impacts of flooding on infrastructure and communities is needed as climate change impacts Aotearoa.

“Ministers have requested officials provide advice on this matter, which is expected shortly.”

MetService CEO Stephen Hunt told the Herald that MetService was the “single authoritative voice for severe weather”.

Hunt said the agency had “no concerns about Niwa or any other weather provider engaged in the national and global competitive weather industry”.

However, MetService “does have concerns about conflicting weather narratives when severe weather presents a risk to New Zealand.”

“Severe weather events are becoming increasingly frequent, severe and complex. As we have seen recently, this is impacting lives, property and livelihoods. Given this, it is critical that all New Zealanders and the New Zealand media know who to turn to for information when a weather warning has been issued. It is essential that important weather forecasts and updates are accessible, clear, understood and acted on by everyone who will be affected.”

Hunt said the agency’s primary concern was “the welfare of New Zealanders and that they are accessing and hearing forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings, and taking steps to protect their wellbeing”.

MetService did not have an issue with a “competitive and active weather marketplace”, allowing for general forecasting that suited individual needs.

“We do care in times of severe weather. Where too many voices can lead to a chance of confusion – this creates a risk to safety and a chance that it will result in possible inaction or apathy. Where the weather impact is likely to be severe a single authoritative voice is vital. Over these times we ask Niwa not to run a competing or confusing weather narrative.”

The issues between MetService and Niwa intensified when Niwa won a contract off MetService in late 2020 to provide some weather forecasting for the Department of Conservation.

In Treasury documents obtained by Herald deputy political editor Thomas Coughlan under the Official Information Act, MetService briefed the Ministry of Transport: “Niwa relies on automated forecasts with no intervention from professional meteorologists”.

MetService believed this was “inappropriate for a public safety service” and it was worried that, during major events, media attention would be split between its forecasts and those of Niwa.

According to Treasury, MetService “has concerns that competition with Niwa for media presence during severe weather events may increase risks to public safety through conflicting narratives”.

Since then, we’ve had Gabrielle and a series of other weather events - media outlets, including the Herald, have indeed been using both agencies’ forecasts.

At the time of Coughlan’s article, a spokesperson for Niwa disputed MetService’s characterisation of its forecasts, saying: “Niwa’s weather and hydrological forecasting and climate modelling is built on decades of internationally recognised scientific endeavour and excellence, working in partnership with the UK Met Office and other global members of the Unified Model Partnership – one of the world’s leading weather modelling and forecasting consortiums”.

Senior journalist Paul Gorman’s investigation into the forecasting industry last year also delved into the concerns of Duncan and another private operator, North Canterbury-based Blue Skies Weather.

Blue Skies chief executive Tony Trewinnard told Gorman he believed successive Governments had shown a lack of leadership. “If the Government owns the organisations, it can dictate how they should be run. We don’t have two competing police forces or competing air-traffic-control organisations. Why do we need two government-owned and funded forecasters?”

MetService CEO Stephen Hunt said Government paid MetService to deliver severe weather warnings.

“This is in line with the World Meteorological Organisation expectations that to avoid confusion, each of the 193 member countries and territories will be very clear on which of its meteorological agencies is the ‘single authoritative voice’ for a severe weather warning service.”

Asked whether there should be just one weather agency, Hunt said: “There should be one for severe weather forecasting situations where there can be multiple, complex, and fast-moving events that require 24/7, real-time expert sight across changes and impacts across local conditions, geographic and hydro tolerance, etc”

The efficiency and value of two Crown weather providers was “a matter for our Government owners”.

At one point, around two years ago, Duncan had issues with both MetService and Niwa. Nowadays, though, he is working much more closely with MetService.

He now pays a small fee for the use of its data, regularly references MetService in his videos and social media, and is planning a new alerting app, for which he hopes to use MetService data. He has previously fought against the big cost both agencies were trying to impose for publicly funded data - but is comfortable with the small fee he has agreed with MetService. He won’t say how much he’s paying.

He says he can probably thank Niwa for the fact WeatherWatch and MetService are now more closely aligned.

Niwa had been putting out “some very big press releases over the years and many of them haven’t panned out”.

MetService, he said, was feeling the pressure of that. “We’ve reached out to them, and they’ve reached out to us with their new CEO Stephen Hunt. We went down to Wellington and met with them a year and a half ago and the relationship has strengthened ever since.

“Whereas Niwa went the other way and just basically gave us the middle finger.”

It is clear Philip Duncan has little time for Niwa. He feels the organisation patronises WeatherWatch, refuses to engage, and is crossing into areas that – he feels – should be the realm of MetService.

He says there’s a simple solution – Niwa should be folded into MetService. “It feels like there is no transparency at all … they refuse to answer questions to reporters.”

I test this theory. On Thursday, after my interview with Duncan, I sent Niwa a list of questions, outlining his specific criticisms as well as broader issues and giving them several hours to respond.

Eventually, after four hours, an email came back from a spokeswoman.

“Niwa is not in a position to comment on these matters at this stage.”

Philip Duncan with a WeatherWatch forecast. Photo / WeatherWatch

Duncan has run the privately owned WeatherWatch service since its launch in 2007.

He wears his highs and lows on his sleeve. He can be the equivalent of a fast-moving front – charming and personable but also known to have a crack on the likes of Twitter. Over the years, he’s had battles with then-Speaker Trevor Mallard, the two main weather agencies, and some media, including the Herald.

There is no denying his passion for the weather, the way it is presented and his business ideas.

Over a Zoom call, he is upbeat, and generous about the Herald’s live coverage of the weather.

But equally, he thinks we – the media generally – can be doing much better in the build-up: Taking a deep breath, making sure it’s not overhyped. He is perplexed by live coverage of forecasts, before an event is even unfolding.

“That’s probably why sometimes on Twitter I get a bit grouchy because I’m trying to find a way to say you’re ... right to talk about this, but the way you’re doing it is ... too big, too strong.”

And equally – as in the case of Gabrielle, he says – not underplaying it in certain media.

He’s even gone so far as to create a weather bingo chart on social media, allowing followers to tick off cliched phrases whenever they hear or see them in the media.

WeatherWatch weather media bingo. Source / WeatherWatch

“As you get older, you try to deal with your emotions a little better,” he says.

“I think one of my ways of dealing with maybe some crazy mainstream media headlines is to turn it into something funny rather than being angry. By the way, I’ve used half of those terms myself over my career.

“It’s not like I’m special and don’t use them, but when you start hearing them over and over, that’s when it starts to become a bit weird.

“And the [Cyclone] Bola one is the one that stands out the most because for almost every storm, a reporter will ask me, ‘is this worse than Bola?’”

For WeatherWatch, the weather events this year have seen a sizeable pick-up in audience and followers. It has 41,000 subscribers on YouTube – with several of its Cyclone Gabrielle videos generating more than 160,000 views each.

“The reason we’re feeling [the weather events] more this year is because we just had a five-year rainfall deficit,” says Duncan.

“Most of the North Island and especially the Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Northland parts - almost every single month of rainfall was below normal, to the point that trees weren’t growing as much, grass wasn’t growing as much.

“Farmers have issues with livestock and food and things like that.

“All of a sudden at the end of last year, it just switched into a new game and suddenly we’re getting rain event after rain event after rain event. And with the extra warmth we’ve got, that just makes the rain even more intense.”

And while the public liked to discuss the deep lows, it was actually big high-pressure zones that were controlling the positioning of the depressions.

“There’s no dramatic end in sight other than we’re heading towards El Nino. And if that does kick in later this year, we’re going to be back to drier than usual and not as stormy – or at least not as many of those big low-pressure storms coming down from the north.”

In the meantime, he has advice for the media.

“I think the biggest problem we’ve still got is that the news media are headlining Niwa and not MetService. You’ll notice the MetService language is always a little more conservative and so is WeatherWatch these days. So I think my only advice to the media is I wish that they would put MetService at the top [over Niwa].”

* Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.