Weather forecasting

NIWA’s South Island snow and ice monitoring stations have confirmed what many skiers have been talking about: winter has been dry and snow coverage has been poor. In fact, several sites have recorded half their typical snow depth for this time of year.

There are about 800km between the southern and northern tips of Tonga - and a lot of ocean.

The Southern Annular Mod is a ring of climate variability that encircles the South Pole and extends out to the latitudes of New Zealand.

When fire came to Pigeon Valley, Fire and Emergency came to NIWA.

Weather and climate experts from around the world are meeting in Wellington next week to discuss the critical need for accurate forecasting to cope with a changing climate.

A partnership that develops one of the world’s foremost weather forecasting and climate prediction systems.

River floods occur when water spills from a river channel onto land that is normally dry, and are one of New Zealand's costliest natural hazards.

El Niño accounts for less than 25 percent of the year-to year variance in seasonal rainfall and temperature at most locations in New Zealand, however its effects can be significant.

The New Zealand Drought Monitor is a system for keeping track of drought conditions across New Zealand based on a standardised climate index.

Check out UV index forecasts for locations in New Zealand (including ski fields), Australia, the Pacific and Antarctica.

NIWA has recently created synthetic, multi-year, 10-minute wind datasets at 15 wind farm sites across New Zealand. These will be used by the Electricity Commission to model the impact of wind farms on the national grid.