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The metservice provides the public with up to date marine, mountain, and local centre weather information via a fully customisable website.
Coastal marine forecast map - general marine forecasts including Wellington marine areas Cook and Stephens
Recreational marine forecast map - Inshore marine forecast for the major recreational marine areas includes Wellington, Mana, and kapiti.
24, 48, & 72 hour Isobaric forecast maps - Three New Zealand forecast maps
Deepfried has a comprehensive Wellington weather page. Including a great Plimmerton webcam.
Online wind readings
www.wind.co.nz - Realtime wind information and 48 hr forecast for the Wellington region and around New Zealand. Subscription service with a 7 day free trial Wellington locations include the airport, Port Jerningham, Petone, Plimmerton, and Kapiti.
www.windguru.cz - reasonably accurate 7 day weather forecast model including wind, swell, rain and temperature forecasting. Includes preset locations for Taranaki, Wellington Auckland and Raglan.
More Links
Paremata-Roundabout-Webcam
Mana (Plimmerton) weather readings.
Lower Hutt weather readings.
Local Notes
Whilst reading the above METSERVICE recreational and coastal marine forecasts, the following info might be of importance
| Central Wellington recreational reading |
Very accurate for "The Ditch" or Lyall Bay. The reading is generally what you will find at the beaches. |
| Tora and southcoast |
These are Coastal marine forecasts and therefore indicate more wind than there actually is on the beach. A 30 knot forecast usually turns out to be a 20 - 25 knot wind on the beaches. Generally not as accurate as the Wellington recreational readings above. |
Additional local observations based on experiences of local sailors !!!
1) Lyall Bay SOUTHERLY windstrength rule: (Works really well actually)
See Surface Observations and click on the latest wind readings.
Take the "Kaikoura" reading and the "Central Wellington" reading. Subtract the hPA reading of Wellington from the Kaikoura hPA reading, which will give you some number like 2.1 or 4.2 etc.
Simply multiply this number by 10 and this should give you an idea of the windspeed in knots in Lyall Bay. Additionally, on the same page, the last 3 hour change figure and the chart will be able to tell you what the wind is most likely to do over the next couple of hours.
2) Don't listen to newspaper or radio forecasts, they definitely have no clue what is happening !
3) Anyone planning a trip over to the Wairarapa will not get around taking the reading of the Surface Observation page. Of importance here is the southerly wind direction at Ngawi point reading (the southern most indicator of the North Island.)
The Southcoast only works nicely if the winddirection is max. S (ie. 180 degrees or less). Anything towards SE is better. A range from 120 to 180 degrees should be sideshore on the southcoast.
Tora is the way to go if the reading is 180 degrees or more, hence a SW is favourable.
Do not go over to the Wairarapa if Wellington is 3.7 weather. You will regret it !!
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