Weather

In terms of approach, if I’m on my own then I have similar philosophy ie good enough to get there without a hiding and then make the best of it.

But if I’m carrying family, which includes young kids, then obviously I’m looking for something nicer to at least entice them aboard or keep them incentivised to ride out a couple of crappy days at anchor, with the hope of some blue sky the other side.

It’s that latter scenario which is hardest to get right in NZ.

Metservice, similar to other users, will be paying a subscription to access the international forecasts (Kieran at PW told me they pay something like $250k/a in subs for the weather models), see
blog.metservice.com/Modelling_the_weather#:~:text=As%20well%2C%20we%20consider%20runs,of%20mid%2Dlatitude%20weather%20systems.
noting
At MetService, we use several of the most-respected global weather models to aid our forecasting.

Probably the most consistent is the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model, generally recognised as the best-performing of the global models. As well, we consider runs of the UK Met Office model, which is very good when it comes to predicting the development and movement of mid-latitude weather systems.

The GFS model, generated by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) in the United States, is also consulted, although this is perhaps not as steady and reliable in this part of the Pacific as the ECMWF model. On top of that, we get modelling from meteorological services in Canada and Japan, and from the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia.

We also run our own in-house models to simulate the turmoil of the atmosphere and can operate these at much higher resolutions to reflect the idiosyncrasies of Aotearoa New Zealand’s landscape.
As far as TV broadcasts go, I expect they will be leaning heavily on Metservice with reference to the same sources, Dan the weatherman is my neighbour, must ask him one day how he researches his presentation.

Not sure what you are looking for, the weather reports on the coastline are generally pretty close and often tend to err a bit on the conservative side. The forecast is just that, an informed prediction of what they expect will happen, not guaranteed. The reality is NZ is on an approx 4 day weather cycle with the progression of Highs and Lows marching across the Tasman, with the occasional system from the tropics creating a bit of variation. The odd crappy day at anchor is boating reality in NZ, always has been.  The key is being positioned to take advantage of the good days, as we were at Gt Barrier. NY Eve was a bit average but the forecast was a swing to SW the following day which saw us, along with quite a few other boats head for the back of Barrier for a week of absolutely awesome cruising.

I was living/working in Perth when its highest ever temperature was recorded, 46.2 deg in Feb 1991, that was almost 33 years ago!
That was hot, I was running a construction site in Kwinana (industrial area south of Perth), the troops knocked off when the temp reached 37.5 deg (100F), I went to a friend's place for the afternoon, sitting in their swimming pool drinking beer.

City block Union rules for construction sites in the 80's and 90's which they had managed to extend into Kwinana, never happened on remote jobs, and a lot changed after the Court Liberal state government got in. That project was a cesspool of industrial action, there was a picket line on the gate for at least one month, and theft was rife, we had a sand blaster and oxygen resus unit nicked, electrical supervisor on the adjacent site was a mate of mine, twice he had ~500m of earth cable stolen out of the cable ladder.

Were you at ANI Hoskings in Bayswater?

Forecast looking pretty mediocre for the w/e.

The surf looks like shit, might have to resort to digging out the mountain bike.