WeatherWatch claims victory as weather data review released

Friday, 12 January 2018

Philip Duncan said, while the report indicated there was less value in data about what was happening than there was in forecasts, the data would not be locked up if it were not valuable.

Weather reporting firm WeatherWatch is claiming a victory in its ten-year fight for better access to taxpayer-funded weather data.

A report, Weather Permitting, was produced for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) last year but was not released until Friday.

Philip Duncan says the costs of accessing the data are astronomical.

It was commissioned to determine whether government-held weather data should be made more widely and freely available to the public.

That includes information from tools such as weather stations, rain radar and weather balloons.

* Weather wars: MetService and Niwa under spotlight in government review

* Editorial: Why do we need both MetService and Niwa to provide weather forecasts?**

That basic data is used to develop other add-on services such as weather forecasts.

The bulk of MetService's operations is funded by the Ministry of Transport, while most of Niwa's revenue comes from MBIE.

MetService's rain radar is updated every 7.5 minutes. Raw data reported via Niwa's weather observation portal CliFlo, which is free to sign up to, is updated at 10-minute, hourly and daily intervals. Real-time data is reserved for commercial clients.

Philip Duncan, chief forecaster at privately-owned WeatherWatch, said that situation was like when Telecom owned all the copper wire netwrok in New Zealand and other companies had to pay to use it.

'It would be like Stuff having to pay RNZ for the right to report the news.'

He said the fees the government would charge for access to the data were astronomical. 'So we don't use it.'

But not having that access put WeatherWatch at a competitive disadvantage against NIWA and MetService, which were both providing weather services.

The review acknowledged there were barriers to better data availability and the restrictions in place might be limiting innovation and economic opportunities in weather products and services.

It also noted the benefits and commercial viability of those innovations were unclear, and that there would be costs involved in making the data available. To do so would require a change to the model.

Duncan said the report supported the point he had argued for the past 10 years.

'This report validates, vindicates and shows true value to everything we have said publicly about how MetService and NIWA unfairly commercialise tax-funded data for their own commercial gains. The report says no other country does it this way,' he said.

'Finally an official government report fully understands and details what we have been saying for a decade - this is tremendous support to our campaign to free up data like the rest of the western world.

'This fight has support on both sides of the aisle, now the government needs to decide what is more important - open data that taxpayers have already funded, or continuing to allow MetService and NIWA to have exclusive commercial access to data New Zealanders all collectively tax-fund,' Duncan said.

WeatherWatch has been campaigning for the review to be made public.

MBIE said Minister of Research, Science and Innovation Megan Woods had indicated that she would like to explore how some of the recommendations of the report could be addressed and had instructed MBIE to undertake work to look at ways to do this.

'The minister also wants to ensure that the costs of any changes, likely to be met by the taxpayer, are proportionate to the benefits. MBIE expects to present this work to the minister in the second half of 2018.'

MetService general manager of corporate affairs Jacqui Bridges said it was not possible to say whether MetService would suffer a commercial loss if the data was more widely available.

'It would depend on a lot of variables: the type and extent of the data; who ultimately would be able to use it; the purpose for which it is used; and how much effort is needed to make it suitable for that use. Much of our raw data would be of very limited value to those not knowing how to work with the various formats it comes in and requirements it comes with.'

She said the organisation had no objection in principle. 'It would come down to how the work to do that would be funded. Maintaining an observing network in one of the world's harshest physical environments, to the high standards required of safety services by the World Meteorological Organization, requires significant resource and expertise, and that's the responsibility we're tasked with.

'We're also mandated to produce forecasts and warnings that help protect the safety of life, property and livelihood for New Zealanders. Everything else we do, and the modest profits we make, are possible because we run an efficient commercial operation consistent with our obligations as a state-owned enterprise.'