Well done Metservice

It's easy to be critical of the weather forecasters at Metservice. Sometimes they fail to predict adverse weather events, and we slag them off. Sometimes they warn of adverse weather events which turn out to be far less menacing than predicted, and we accuse them of being alarmist.

This weekend they've got it just right. From Thursday, Metservice was warning of a stormy weekend with snow to low levels in the South Island, damaging winds and heavy rain. All of that has come to pass, and the storm has left a trail of damage the length of the country.




Even now, they still seems to be some pretty unsettled weather to come, as yesterday's Severe Weather Outlook shows above (next update early this afternoon). That's a worry in this part of the world where we've had around 40% of the average annual rainfall since the beginning of August, and the ground is saturated. There have been several slips on the roads in and around Wanganui over the last few days, and further rain will only exacerbate that situation. We need a good week of dry weather to let the ground recover a bit.

So thanks Metservice; we make not like the messages you send out, but this weekend they've been right on the money.