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The word "thunderstorms" was missing from the weather warning faxed to the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre the morning before the flash flood that killed six students and a teacher.
The pursuits centre is understood to have received a faxed weather forecast at 6.15am on Tuesday - but not the upgraded bulletin predicting heavy rain sent two hours later.
A spokesman for MetService told Newstalk ZB this morning that the word was accidentally left off the forecast between 1.08am and 6.31am but later included.
He said the word "thunderstorms" was added 16 minutes after the forecast was faxed to the centre.
Outdoor Pursuits Centre chief executive Grant Davidson said staff were not aware of any weather warnings on Tuesday morning.
He said forecasts from MetService the centre received at 6.15am on Tuesday showed "nothing untoward", just "intermittent rain".
At 8.29am, MetService warned of heavy rain coming to Taranaki, Taupo, Waitomo and Taumarunui. The forecast specifically urged people to watch for rising streams and rivers and possible surface flooding.
"We spelled it out pretty clearly that there would be a lot of rain in a short period," National Forecasting Centre manager Peter Kreft said.
"The system that we used to decide where the heavy rainfall would be and to communicate it to the community is the same system we have used for quite some years and it has proven over time to be very robust."
The Tongariro region was lashed by more than 40mm of rain in a few hours and the landscape around the Mangatepopo channelled much of that water towards the adventurers.
- With Newstalk ZB
