The MetService has identified a site for its new Dunedin rain radar, which is on track to be built in the summer of 2018-19.
The state-owned weather bureau announced in 2015 it was seeking a site for a radar capable of more accurately forecasting rain events.
Corporate affairs general manager Jacqui Bridges said this week a specific site had been identified, and the company was going through a commercial process to secure it.
She could not say where the site was until that process was completed.
Dunedin has been covered by radars in Southland and Canterbury, but there have been calls since 2008 for the area to have its own.
Ms Bridges has said because of the curvature of the earth, the beam from those radars did not get as close to the ground as the MetService would like.
The Dunedin radar would be the 10th to be built, the last being a Northland facility opened in 2014.
"We’ve been wanting to do it for some time, and it’s been great to lock it in and get the process under way.
"The imagery we get at the moment just doesn’t tell us what’s going on closer to the ground."
That information was important, particularly to identify the intensity of rainfall.
"The weather radar for Dunedin will definitely make a big difference."
The organisation was aiming for the summer of 2018-19 to install the radar, Ms Bridges said.
Things still needed to be "signed on the dotted line", but she was reasonably confident that would be achieved.
