Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
NIWA's merger with MetService and GNS will address issues identified in the agencies' response to Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle, says the organisation's manager for climate, atmosphere and hazards.
A coronial inquest into the deaths of 19 people during the two severe weather events continued Wednesday with evidence from NIWA's Nava Fedaeff.
She said the institute was supportive of the government's plan to merge NIWA with GNS and later MetService.
NIWA's manager for climate, atmosphere and hazards Nava Fedaeff. Photo: RNZ / Liu Chen
"NIWA agrees with the government that combining NIWA and MetService will help create a more integrated and efficient weather forecasting system," she said.
"In particular, this change will enable joint unlimited access to supercomputer and IT infrastructure and resources, real-time environmental data such as weather stations, satellite and radar data, and inter-comparison and co-development of advanced NWP (Numerical Weather Prediction) data products and services."
"Additionally, combining GNS with NIWA will bring numerous potential benefits as each organisation has expertise and skills in complementary areas [such as] integrating NIWA's capabilities in hydrology with GNS' ground-water science."
Fedaeff echoed previous statements given by MetService's Chris Noble that forecasters had a limited ability to predict the particular impacts of a storm.
"Meteorologists are, in general, forecasting the weather, not the impacts of that weather," Fedaeff said.
"Connecting the weather to potential impacts is always going to be imperfect given the number of variables and the difficulty in ascertaining which apply in a particular context or locality."
"For example, heavy rain on already sodden ground has a different impact than the same amount of rain falling on drier ground."
She also noted the importance of effective communication before and during a storm.
"Scientists can produce weather forecasts and information, but this information needs to be communicated to the relevant audience in an appropriate and timely way," she said.
"If the receiver does not understand what the information means and what the impacts might be, then it may not result in action or the most suitable action despite the relative accuracy of the forecast."
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
