Dunedin residents in certain suburbs have long argued their weather is better than other suburbs in the city.
Now Port Chalmers residents will be able to chime in with their own official data, after MetService opened a weather station in the suburb.
Equipment was installed on Flagstaff Hill, above Port Chalmers, last December, to record temperature, rainfall, humidity, pressure, wind speed and direction, and now the weather station has just gone live on the MetService website, making the data available to the public.
It will also provide very localised weather forecasts and observations.
The request for the new weather station came from Port Otago, which wanted improved wind observations because wind conditions affect port operations.
Port Otago marine and infrastructure general manager Grant Bicknell said Port Otago paid for all the equipment ($25,000) and the company would pay for the station’s ongoing maintenance and connectivity to the MetService website.
MetService paid for the development of the webpage.
"There was no local weather observation station connected to the MetService," Mr Bicknell said.
"Port Otago saw an opportunity to provide some resilience in our own weather observation network, as well as enabling some better local weather forecasting.
"The added benefit was for the Port Chalmers community to have its own MetService weather page."
Mr Bicknell said it was "very exciting" to see the weather station operational, and great to have a dedicated Port Chalmers MetService page.
"This data also feeds into forecasting models, and we will see weather forecasts become more accurate over time.
"Port Otago values the genuine working relationship it has with the MetService team.
"Partnering together to make the Port Chalmers page happen is an excellent by-product of that."
