On 1 July 2025, NIWA merged with GNS Science to become Earth Sciences New Zealand.

Climate & Weather

Understanding our variable and changing climate is critical for managing resources and reducing risks.

Drought forecasting dashboard

The drought forecasting tool uses innovative climate modelling, the latest in machine learning and other data-driven techniques to predict rainfall 35 days ahead. Helping farmers and growers better prepare for periods of dryness and drought.

Climate and weather

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    Meeting the challenge of ocean acidification

    Feature story
    01 February 2016
    New Zealand’s answer to ocean acidification is a model of the ‘best team’ approach – when organisations pool talent and resources to find solutions to national, or global, issues.]
    Ocean acidification

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    NIWA's Hotspot Watch

    Hotspot
    29 January 2016
    A weekly update describing soil moisture across the country to help assess whether severely to extremely dry conditions are occurring or imminent.

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    NIWA's Hotspot Watch

    Hotspot
    22 January 2016
    Over the past week, soil moisture levels across the North Island have mostly remained the same or increased.

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    Field work and collections

    Climate Present and Past is involved with maintaining nationally important collections and undertaking field work.

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    Extremes

    Although New Zealand is located in a temperate region, the country still experiences extreme climatic conditions from time to time.

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    Trends

    The Earth’s climate experiences changes caused by natural fluctuations as well as human influences. These result in trends over time for different climatic variables.

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    Synoptic types

    New Zealand is affected by weather systems which originate over the seas around the country, which can be characterised as 12 daily weather types.

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    ACRE Antarctica

    ACRE Antarctica is a project within the Deep South National Science Challenge.
    Antarctica

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    ACRE Pacific

    ACRE Pacific is a NIWA-led part of the the wider ACRE initiative, run by the UK Met Office.
    Pacific climate

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    PICT (Past Interpretation of Climate) tool

    The Past Interpretation of Climate Tool (PICT) is an interactive platform that "allows palaeoclimate researchers to interpret data in terms of atmospheric circulation (AC) patterns and how those patterns relate to synoptic weather types".

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    South Pacific Rainfall Atlas

    The South Pacific Rainfall Atlas (SPRAT) is a project that was supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to use the NIWA rainfall database and generate rainfall anomaly maps at the station and island group level for the Pacific Islands.

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    Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation

    The Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, or IPO, is a large-scale, long period oscillation that influences climate variability over the Pacific Basin.