Meteorological Service of New Zealand Limited, or simply MetService (Māori: Te Ratonga Tirorangi, lit.
[2] A combination of commercial competition in the deregulated market for meteorological services and reform of publicly funded science led to the establishment of MetService as a state-owned enterprise on 1 July 1992.
MetOcean was an established company specialising in oceanographic analysis for research and forecasting for many purposes, including ports, offshore oil & gas industries and surfers.
[4][5] In 1992, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) was spun off from the MetService to become a separate Crown entity focusing on long-term weather patterns and climate change.
[7] In 2020, MetService chief executive Peter Lennox told Parliament that they have more weather models and meteorologists and produced more detailed forecast than NIWA.
[7] Following several extreme weather events in 2023, the Government commissioned the Sapere research group to explore how the two metereological services could combine their capabilities.
In particular, data are collected through: Norm Henry, General Manager of Science and Strategy, is the current permanent representative of New Zealand with the WMO.
Meteorologists at MetService routinely use information from the world's major modelling centres for day-to-day production of forecasts and weather warnings.
Forecasts and warnings funded by the New Zealand government include: MetService maintains close links with the meteorological agencies of various Pacific Island states.
MetService provides backup for the main warning and forecasting responsibilities of the Regional Specialized Meteorological Center in Nadi, Fiji, should that centre temporarily shut down or be cut off, possibly due to a direct hit by a cyclone.