Weather forecasts for the Tararuas?
I have not been able to find one weather forecast for the Tararua Ranges.. Does anybody know where to access one?
I thought forecasting for the Tararuas would be pretty much a no-brainer. With the sea on three sides you can pretty much assume that the wind comming from anywhere is going to bring bad weather.
Seriously though.. http://www.metservice.co.nz is pretty good. I look at the rain radar and also the 3 and 7 day rain models. Those give you a pretty good idea as to what is going on. Also check out the Mountain Forecast, the Tararuas is usually mentioned there.
Ohk thankyou!
Pmcke's right, the metservice website is reasonably accurate certainly out to 3 days, any longer and the timing of weather events tends to be variable.
The mountain forecast often mentions the Tararuas and I also use the weather forecasts of the surrounding towns (Levin, Masterton etc.) to get an idea.
The MetService was pretty good in it's 7-day forecasts in early April for Nelson Lakes and Kahurangi - rained when it was forecast.
You can get additional input from the Aussie BOM - Interactive Weather & Wave Forecast Maps at : http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/charts/viewer/index.shtml
If you can read a weather map, it gives a good idea of how the systems are moving.
When you're tramping you can carry a little radio and listen to the mountain forecast at 4pm on National Radio. And if your cellphone has a web browser, and you have reception, those sequential weather maps on the Metservice website are brilliant. But their 'mountain forecast' page does not include a clickable 'Tararua' tab, for some odd reason. Everyone should send them an email saying 'why not?'
If find this quite good
http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-Hector-2/forecasts/1529
- and check it against metservice and I quite like the BBC style elocution on the mountain weather forecast on National Radio 4pm each day (and 4am if you are awake!) :)
That Mountain-forecast site looks a bit too good to be true, and probably is. I see it is an international site using a weather model to predict the climate at the altitude of the mountain. I think I would tend to trust the boys at Kelston more. After all, they can probably see Mt Hector from their office window.
Also in NZ we get lots of microclimates that are difficult to predict without local knowledge. As we all know, the weather on one side of the mountain is likely to be vastly different from that on the other side.
I see noone has mentioned Ken Ring yet.
Yes always good to compare to metservice and take into account climates specific to regions - just out of interest compared the metservice mountain forecast for Tongariro for this Sunday:
Sunday 12 June
Issued at: 10:37am 9 June 2011
Showers clearing early on and fine spells increasing. Southwesterlies.
Free air freezing Level: 2100 metres
compared to the mountain forecast website - pretty similar predictions:
http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-Tongariro/forecasts/1000
Like this site but would not solely rely on it.
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