Phillip Duncan: WeatherWatch head forecaster on NIWA acquiring MetService

A weather expert says creating one state weather forecasting system is the right decision. 

The Government's announced it's agreed in-principle to NIWA acquiring MetService - merging the two.  

Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins says streamlining the two will make it easier to access information from a single trusted source and improve response to severe weather events. 

WeatherWatch head forecaster Phillip Duncan told Ryan Bridge that it’s been a bit of a weird journey to get to this point, but it’s definitely the right thing. 

He said that a government having two opposing agencies doing weather forecasts and saying different things is a recipe for disaster.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A storm could be brewing, as the government has agreed
in principle to merge Newer and Met Service to bring
us a stronger weather forecasting system. Merging the two it's
been a big topic of conversation after it was found
that Met Service modeling failed to predict the scale and
the intensity of the Auckland Anniversary weekend floods. The plan
would see Newer acquire met Service, with Met Service keeping

(00:23):
its role as out authorized meteorologist. Philip Duncan is a
weather watch head analyst and weather communicator. He's with us
this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hey Philip, good morning, good too with you.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Good to have you on the show. Will these two
be able to get along and play nice?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Do you think? Well? I mean they're going to have to.
That decision has already been made and it's going to
be a bit of a tough ride, I think to
some of the Met Service team, because it's probably a
little bit deflating to be merged into a brand new
weather forecasting company that sort of started to aggressively attack

(00:58):
you about ten years ago, which is what NEEWA did
and Nie were invested a lot of money into going
after Met Service, and they had no approval from cabinet
to do this. It was. It was done sort of
secretly and with no transparency. So it's a bit of
a weird journey to get to this point. But the
government has definitely done the right thing because for a

(01:18):
government to have two opposing agencies doing weather forecasts and
saying different things is a recipe for a disaster.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah, well, and we had one didn't we would say, yeah,
is it fair to say that met Service missed that
Auckland Anniversary flood? I mean, wasn't that such a freak
event that no one really knew it was coming?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Did you? Absolutely? Yeah. The Auckland flood event was basically
a downpour, just an isolated downpour, but it was over
the top of our largest city. But you ask farmers
around New Zealand have you ever had a downpour that's
done monumentally a big flooding, And a lot of them
will say yes at some point, not to say that
that was equal to everyone else, but you know, it

(01:58):
was a singular downpour. There was no you to modeling
on the planet that picked what actually happened, and so
it was. It was a tough ride, but it is
a good example of what is happening here you got
me were with this supercomputer that is paid for by
the people, and then you've got met Service. The weather
forecast is funded by the people to do warnings, but

(02:18):
they don't share the equipment. And so you're at one
side saying I can see something happening, and then when
you say, well, will you be sharing that with met Service,
MEWA goes no. For commercial reasons, We're not going to.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
And that's the problem that's done. Where do you get
you because you're a private business, right Philip, where do
you get your data from? Is it from do you
buy it from KNEEWA or someone?

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Oh, we couldn't afford it. In fact, that's the reason
why this is a bit of a concern. We went
to the Commerce Commission about neeware because their pricing was astronomical.
We're talking about millions of dollars to access something that's
free in every other modern country, and so it's a
it's designed to keep NEEWA in power. The one positive
about this. Well, so to answer your question, we were

(03:00):
forced to basically buy data from America. Now, there are
two different things with weather forecasting. One is the actual
forecasting data. So the data we buy from the weather Company,
which used to be IBM's the most accurate in the world.
So you know the fact that we were forced to
go down that road, that route and end up with
that data's turned out to be the best thing for us.

(03:22):
But the downside is we don't have access to historical
data and that means no one in New Zealand really
learns as a forecast. We don't learn from our mistakes
automatically because that data is missing. So in Australia, get
something wrong, the computers will go all right, that's what happened,
this is what we forecast. Let's learn from that mistake.
But in New Zealand, MEWA holds on to that information

(03:44):
and says you can't have it, so met Service doesn't
learn from it, and then met Service doesn't share the radar,
so Newa doesn't learn from that. And so as a
private company, we've just decided to just say basically, we're
not going to get involved in that historical stuff. We'll
just focus on forecasting only.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
That can't be a good thing for the rest of us. Philip,
thank you very much for that. That's Philip Duncan. He's
a weather watchhead analyst and weather communicator, talking about this
merger that is going to happen between met Service and
Newer sounds like it about time it did happen too.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
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Speaker 1 (04:18):
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