METSERVICE PROMISES SUNNY DEVONPORT, ONE CLOUD DIDN'T GET THE MEMO
Forecast said fine. The sky above Cheltenham Road said otherwise.
MetService confidently declared Devonport would enjoy a sunny Wednesday with light northerlies, a forecast immediately contradicted by a single dark cloud parked directly over the ferry terminal like it owned the place.
The cloud, described by witnesses as "angry-looking" and "about the size of a small barge", dumped on commuters between 8:14 and 8:19am before buggering off toward Bayswater. The rest of the suburb remained, as promised, sunny.
Ferry punter Karen Holdsworth, who'd left her brolly at home on the strength of the forecast, copped the lot. "Looked up, saw blue sky everywhere except the bit above my head. Bloody typical. Got off the boat in town bone dry, mind you. The cloud's a Devonport problem."
A bloke I know who does roofing out of a shed in Belmont reckons MetService wouldn't know a southerly from a sausage roll. "They've got the satellites and the computers and the whole shebang, and they still can't see one cloud the size of a house parked over the wharf. My nan could've forecast that with her knee."
MetService, contacted for comment, said the forecast was "broadly accurate" and that "localised convective activity" was difficult to predict at the suburb level. Asked if that meant the one cloud, they confirmed it meant the one cloud.
The cloud was last seen heading for Takapuna, where it is reportedly someone else's problem.
The cloud, described by witnesses as "angry-looking" and "about the size of a small barge", dumped on commuters between 8:14 and 8:19am before buggering off toward Bayswater. The rest of the suburb remained, as promised, sunny.
Ferry punter Karen Holdsworth, who'd left her brolly at home on the strength of the forecast, copped the lot. "Looked up, saw blue sky everywhere except the bit above my head. Bloody typical. Got off the boat in town bone dry, mind you. The cloud's a Devonport problem."
A bloke I know who does roofing out of a shed in Belmont reckons MetService wouldn't know a southerly from a sausage roll. "They've got the satellites and the computers and the whole shebang, and they still can't see one cloud the size of a house parked over the wharf. My nan could've forecast that with her knee."
MetService, contacted for comment, said the forecast was "broadly accurate" and that "localised convective activity" was difficult to predict at the suburb level. Asked if that meant the one cloud, they confirmed it meant the one cloud.
The cloud was last seen heading for Takapuna, where it is reportedly someone else's problem.