Weather forecasting system review – Final report

We were pleased to have had the opportunity to be engaged by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and the Treasury to review the weather forecasting system in New Zealand, focusing on the following objectives:

1. Identify and recommend the optimal arrangements and responsibilities in the weather forecasting system that will best position New Zealand to meet future weather-related challenges and impacts in the context of climate change
2. Consider the structural configuration of MetService and NIWA, based on the optimal system arrangements identified in point one above
3. Identify if changes in access to weather data should be made and what these should be.

Having completed our analysis, we recommended a re-integration of meteorology services with climate science, hydrology, and oceanography. We believe this will best meet New Zealand’s future needs for weather prediction and anticipation of the effects of weather events and address potential challenges to meeting these needs. In particular, the adjacency of weather with hydrology and the integration of the research to operations pipeline (and resulting implementation and outcomes), together with the removal of duplication in data management and back-office functions provided a compelling logic. We also suggested other changes to funding and monitoring, data access, and the integration across systems and uses to support the prioritisation of effort, take a long-term view of investments and needs, and support:

i) the application of insights across different applications, and

ii) improved understanding of impacts.

We are pleased to see that the government has agreed in principle as announced by the Minister. This represents a significant opportunity to best leverage the skills and systems that exist. There will no doubt be effort involved in achieving this and we are supportive of the agencies as they work through making this happen.

The report was written by David Moore, Angus White, Hamish Hann and Matthew Williamson.

Interim Report

See more information on the MBIE website.

News article:

NIWA to take over MetService in forecaster merger, RNZ, 26 September 2024