MetService / Weatherwatch stoush continues

[gabba]

MetService 'blocking data' to rival WeatherWatch | Stuff.co.nz

Interesting - what do you think?

Philip Duncan, head analyst of WeatherWatch, has criticised the state forecaster after it began enforcing its policy of sharing only three-hour-old data with the private forecaster, which Duncan said limited his real-time interpretations of data and affected his clients, who included farmers, pilots and small businesses.

From the metservice website ():

Data Distribution and Availability
Observational data from the Regional Basic Synoptic Network as defined by WMO is freely distributed internationally through WMO with no restrictions on use. In addition, public access to a particular set of observational data is made available at no charge through this web site.

Online New Zealand meteorological data for the last 24 hours includes:

Surface observations from at least 40 stations, updated 3 hourly;
All upper wind, temperature and humidity observations from New Zealand ground based stations;
Weather radar images from Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne/Hawke's Bay, Taranaki, Wellington, Canterbury and Southland, updated every 3 hours;
Weather satellite images covering the eastern Australia-Tasman Sea-New Zealand region, updated every 3 hours.
All observational data gathered in direct support of the public forecast services provided under MetService's contract with the Ministry of Transport is also passed to NIWA for archiving in the National Climate Database.

I think what weather watch are trying to do here is challenge the commercial agreement that MetService has for provision of data, as Philip Duncan seems to suggest thatmore than 3 hours worth of data is available by other WMO accredited organisations.

If MetService has a requirement to return a profit to the government then it is up to the government to come to agreement with the Metservice, around what they pay for public use, and what they don't (which is the agreement between MetService and Ministry of Transport).

So is Mr Duncans beef with the MetService or with the contract it has with the government? I think it should be the latter, but I don't think he presents his case that way.

If Weatherwatch had a need to produce reliable forecasts commercially for their clients, then why would they not pay for the service from the MetService. Met Service offer it. It costs the MetService to collect, collate and store this data, so giving it to someone who will produce a product in competition to them, for free, would be a loss maker fopr the MetService.

If Weatherwatch had a need for the info, why don't they collect it themselves - oh because it wouldn't make it commercially viable to deliver the service to their customers, so they do need to acknowledge the cost of the data collection that MetService perform.

Interested in others opinions tho. What do you think?

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[gabba]

...and the response from MetService...

Public weather information is accessible to all | MetService Blog

It is a shame that this all has to be aired in public via stuff and social media channels. I see WW were making the most of it on Twitter yesterday, but MetService were strangely quiet, until the blog post above

[JennyLeez]

I went back and read twitter for last 2 days out of interest, thanks for the heads up on that one Gabba.

I can see arguments for both sides though, bit like business man verses labourer. Depend which fence you are sitting on

[David]

The main issue is that Metservice is run as an enterprise and has to make money for itself.

WeatherWatch spinning this public campaign against them is a bit unfair really, it's the government they should be lobbying over this issue.

Metservice already goes beyond it's contractual obligations, although they could still make some improvements (like making all high-res radars available to the public - not just the Chch and BoP radars).

[gabba]

I agree David

The beef should be with the content of the contract, which I'm sure MetService will be happy to change if they get additional money (effectively from the taxpayer) for it.