Finding Whanganui on the Metservice site just got a little harder. Photo / Bevan Conley
Finding Whanganui on the Metservice site just got a little harder. Photo / Bevan Conley
Whanganui has been taken off the weather map.
A revamp of the MetService website has dumped Whanganui from the homepage meaning people need to click through the site to see Whanganui's weather information.
Whanganui has always featured on the homepage but was culled in the upgrade along with towns such as Levin and Paraparaumu.
Whanganui mayor Hamish McDouall learned of the demotion when contacted by the Chronicle for comment and immediately called MetService chief executive Peter Lennox.
"I have rung the MetService chief executive and will be advocating to have it back," he said.
While MetService has said it was about simplifying the site, McDouall said there was a huge difference between Whanganui's climate compared with Palmerston North and New Plymouth.
"It is very rarely that Palmerston North is the warmer place whereas here we get the lovely Indian sun in April and we're warmer than a lot of places around the country," he said.
McDouall said he did not understand why Whanganui was dropped ahead of smaller cities such as Masterton and Blenheim which still take pride of place on the homepage.
MetService is a state-owned company which provides the national weather service.
Its revamped site was launched last month.
A MetService spokesperson said it "simplified" the site.
"The change created enough space to give a snapshot of weather conditions across New Zealand by showing temperatures and icons for 24 locations," an emailed statement said.
It said previously the homepage map of New Zealand did not provide temperature information for each city until you clicked into it further, it only showed weather icons for 15 locations.
Factors that helped to influence the locations selected were geography, proximity to other locations on the homepage, population and weather data availability at locations, the Metservice statement said.
You can no longer view the old MetService homepage that displayed Whanganui on the map. Photo / File
It said the website now contains more forecast locations and they plan to continually increase this.
"As this number increases, using the homepage map as a way to access a local forecast becomes less practical."
The spokesperson said a detailed forecast for Whanganui was still available and could be found using the search functionality which has improved.
And it is not all grey skies ahead with a new feature allowing users to favourite locations that matter to them.
Any location or page can be made a favourite by clicking the star in the search bar while on that page.
A top favourite will appear on the homepage and a person's top three favourites will feature in the search bar whenever a user goes on the site.
"This upgrade provides a more flexible web platform which allows MetService to be more adaptable as the future of forecasting evolves, and the devices people use change."
They said although the website is live is does not mean they are finished developing it and they are committed to listen to feedback and make adjustments.
You can read today's weather - from MetService - here.
