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Waikawa Beach Weather News

13 Oct 24
Website PHP updated to version 8.3. Broken the Yearly Data and Earthquakes page for now, so will review the code soon and get them running again.

11 July 24 - Shooting of domestic pet cat (Sharkie)

Hello fellow residents. On Thursday afternoon 11th July 2024, (the first week of school holidays) we have reason to believe someone either shot onto, or was trespassing on our property with a rifle, and shot our little Sharkie.

Sharkie was shot through his leg and into his lower stomach, with the bullet breaking up and leaving shrapnel throughout his lower body. Massey University Vet Emergency Clinic surgeons have removed some pieces of shrapnel but not all can be removed, and have triaged the wounds.

Sharkie is now at home and we are having to carefully monitor his progress. How he recovers over the next couple of months is critical, and he may require further operations. Sharkie does not tend to wander as he spends around 99% of his time inside since he is very timid.

We have spoken with both the SPCA and NZ Police who have an open case, and are greatly concerned that a rifle is being used in a built-up area, and that a domestic animal has been shot.

We have spoken with our direct neighbours along Emma Drive, Holley Way, Amy Way, and some from Walkers Lane. Everyone we have spoken with also shared their concerns, as nearly everyone also has pets.

We would suggest everyone remains vigilant and keeps an eye out for inappropriate firmarms use in this area.

3 Mar 24
Too much stuff doesn't run under Linux (naming WXSIM) so reluctantly moving back to windows :(

26 Feb 24
Waikawa Beach Weather is being migrated to Linux, due to REPEATEDLY having to try and FIX and keep Windows running. The latest update nuked the (perfectly valid) activation. Therefore, CumulusMX is now running under Linux. WXSIM will take some time to get going as that ONLY runs on Windows, so this menu item has been removed for now. Ditto with the webcam view. Further updates as more progress is made.

11 Feb 24
Console fell off the wall and USB cable had disconnected. Back online again now!

4 Feb 24
Rain hasn't been registering for the last few days, as there was corrosion on the corrosion on the terminals. Have cleaned and seems to be registering again correctly!

21 Jan 24
Removed bogus weather records from December 2023 when temp/humidity sensor was not working

21 Dec 23
Waikawa Beach Weather is now running on a new (faster) PC!

5 Nov 23
Yearly Data page stopped working as it was old code. Updated with new annual summary code!

22 Apr 23
Bogus rain records in Feb 23. Hopefully removed incorrect records now.

21 Dec 22
Cumulus MX Service had stopped...for 3 days :( Back up and running now :)

4 Jan 2022
Davis Weather Station has been relocated to make it easier to service more regularly (evict spiders!). All sensors up and running again.

14 Sep 2021
Rain gauge was not reading correctly. Clean and checked the sensor and will monitor. Might be faulted rain gauge, once again.

15 Aug 2021
Graph pages now available again, showing last 72 hours of weather data.

Added back earthquakes page, although this is based on USGS, not Geonet NZ. Might look to parse Geonet's JSON quake file when I have a spare month! :)

8 Aug 2021
Updates to hosting providers CPanel meant that FTP uploads stopped working. Sorted now. :)

19 July 2021
Waikawa Beach Weather is now running from WebhostingNZ! The Recent Graphs page has been removed as the graphs aren't functioning. Will look to change to change back to HighCharts when time permits :)

29 May 2021
Fixed the Seasonal timings under Sun/Moon. Calculations only went to 2020 :)

23 Jan 2021
Fixed the UV colours in the Yearly Data Reports!

13 Jan 2021
Fixed the Yearly Data Reports. UV page colours still not right, but all other pages updating again.

9 Aug 2020
Fixed NOAA reports. Added Waikawa Beach Weather to Windy.com uploads. Updated jpgraphs to 4.3.1. Updated Cumulus MX to 3.7.0 Build 3089. Updated WXSIM to 2020 Build 1.

1 May 2020
Outdoor humidity sensor has been replaced and is now operational again - yay!

21 March 2020
Outdoor humidity sensor is not working. Will have to order replacement.

26 Oct 2019
Recent graphs now available via Recent Graphs link on the menu and are created using JpGraph from the Cumulus MX JSON files. Will try to tidy up this page when more time available :)

28 Sept 2019
Waikawa Beach Weather is being transitioned back to using Cumulus MX Weather Reporting Software. Some pages may not work as expected for a bit.

10 Aug 2019
Computer hosting the weather data has been rebuilt and all services back online!

28 July 2019
Computer hosting the weather data has died, so currently rebuilding. Updates should be available soon.

2 Jun 2019
Fixed webcam image not uploading.
Fixed Fire Weather Graphs not uploading.
Fixed errors in previous years All Time Records (due to manual conversion from Weather Display data).
Added weather satellite images, care of NOAA.

10 Feb 2019
WeatherCat upgraded to Version 3!
Fixed the Current Conditions Metar error - source has changed to HTTPS.

12 Jan 2019
Changed the moonrise time to be calculated, as the fetch from USNO doesn't seem to be working anymore.

31 Dec 2018
Major issues with MySQL version changes and the code running on this website, which is becoming too hard to maintain. Instead, all reports and graphs are now generated by WeatherCat! :)

Just waiting on a licensing for Version 3 of WeatherCat before upgrading, so hopefully there are some new reports and graphs which I'll make available.

Cleaned the rain bucket again...full of bird pooh so likely hasn't been reading accurate rain for a couple of weeks...

Happy New Year!

23 Dec 2018
Recent and historical graphs offline, while issue with MySQL is sorted out.

16 Sept 2018
Fixed issue with Fire Weather Data. Should be reading correctly from today.
WXSIM now using local weather data again so should be more accurate.

28 June 2018
Waikawa Beach Weather is back online - YAY! Thanks kindly to the team at NZ WeatherData for their perseverance in finding the issue with the rain gauge! Just in time for the coming rain this weekend!

NOTE: WXSIM forecasting only using data from METAR for a period of time until there is sufficient local weather data to provide the needed input.

16 June 2018
Weather data currently unavailable while weather station is away being repaired :(

26 May 2018
Unfortunately the rain gauge is still offline. Replacement reed switch didn't fix the issue. Will save up for new rain gauge :)

19 May 2018
Rain reed switch been replaced. Hopefully recording rain correctly now!!
WXSIM forecasts working again now too. Data file was corrupted.

28 April 2018
Rain gauge is currently offline - the electonics have rusted so rocker no longer measuring tipping. Will order replacement part. :(

14 April 2018
SSL Cert had expired for secure file upload to InSPireNet.

28 April 2018
Rain gauge is currently offline - the electonics have rusted so rocker no longer measuring tipping. Will order replacement part. :(

orted now :)

7 April 2018
Issue with WXSIM data files meant forecasts weren't working. Fixed data files so forecasts appear to be running as normal now.

2 March 2018
Spiders had set up residence under the rain rocker, so no rain measured this week. Will update manually from local surrounding weather stations. Spiders evicted by the way!

17 Feb 2018
WXSIM weather forecasting, Fire Weather information and Current Steel Gauges now operational again! There were errors with temperature readings in log file which were causing all to fail.

22 Septmber 2017
Server hosting the weather updates ran out of space, so all updates offline for last week. Fixed now :)

10 Septmber 2017
Error in local weather data file meant WXSIM forecasts weren't running. Fixed the error, so forecasts running as expected now.

27 August 2017
Removed and cleaned wind anemometer - must have had some salt stuck in the bearings. Seems to be spinning ok now - yay! Fixed recent graphs page, which wasn't uploading data. Have removed additional temperature and humidity readings since this sensor is now offline.

20 August 2017
Wind gauge not working (spinning). Have tried trusty WD40, but suspect station needs a proper clean. Will monitor. WXSIM forecasts affected by wind readings.

7 July 2017
WXSIM forecasts not working correctly - complaining about suspicious initial wind value, so need to investigate

18 March 2017
Have evicted numerous spiders from their homes in the rain gauge tipper, so should again be measuring rainfall correctly. Manually updated rainfall from measurements taken from Environmental Monitoring and Research

28 January 2017
Exposed temperature and humidity sensor is FUBAR, so sensors offline for now.
18 December 2016
Found the issue in local weather data files (thanks Tom!), so WXSIM forecasts using local data again - YAY! Should be more accurate once again.

20 November 2016
WXSIM forecasts not working very well. SYNOP data not available and issue with local weather data files, so these two are disabled currently. Forecasts now running, but not likely to be as accurate until these can be resolved.

21 August 2016
Webcam back online again. Fixed highcharts recent solar graphs.

14 August 2016
Fixed the recent graphs highcharts page. Ajax gizmo issue caused the highcharts graph to continually reload. Updated some colours and removed regional lines.

31 July 2016
Waikawa Beach Weather is now powered by WeatherCat!

The following pages are now operational:
   - WXSIM forecasts
   - Fire Weather Index calculations
   - Steel series gauges
   - Sun/Moon information
   - Records
   - Cloud base graphic (on main page)
   - Annual Summary
   - Recent Graphs (High Charts - Wind Direction Chart disabled due to issues)
   - Historic Graphs (High Charts)

The following pages will not be updated as they are hardly used:
   - NOAA Reports

16 June 2016, 5pm
Wind anenometer has been replaced and is now working as expected - yay!

10 July 2016, 5pm
Wind direction definitely not working correctly. Wind in the range N -> E -> S reports correctly, but anything S -> W -> N seems to report NNW! Currently waiting on feedback from Davis... :( Hence the wind gauge seems to be constantly NNWwx

11 June 2016, 5pm
Wind anenometer appears to be favouring westerly, but is running again. Will monitor.

11 June 2016, 4pm
Wind anenometer appears to have stopped working. In the process of cleaning and testing so wind readings will be offline for a while

3 June 2016, 5pm
Temperature and wind sensors back online! Battery was flat as well as (multiple) magpie droppings had blocked the wind vane!! Grrr :(

7 May 2016, 5pm
Fixed the graphing issues - Highcharts version reference needed updating, amongst other things! Recent and historic graphs now working correctly again.

7 May 2016
Internet back online, so updates now operational. Still investigating the recent graphs issue.

6 May 2016
Internet access is down, so no weather station updates currently - investigating.

4 May 2016
Something is wrong with the recent graphs data so the link is temporarily removed from the menu

3 May 2016
Weather station updates back online again!

2 May 2016
Weather station updates currently offline while server is being fixed.

7 Feb 2016
Issue with yearly data not showing correct max and min temperatures now fixed. Thanks to Frank for letting me know :)

3 Jan 2016
Happy 2016! Outdoor temperature and humidity readings now being reported from the secondary Davis temperature and humidity station, which is in a more "realistic" location to reflect Waikawa beach temperatures. The ISS temperature and humidity sensor is now being reported as "exposed" readings on the main website.

28 Nov 2015
Power outage during the week shutdown weather station. All weather data and reporting should be back online now.

22 Nov 2015
Removed trends page and replaced with Steel Series Gauges.

21 Nov 2015
Waikawa Beach Weather is now powered by Cumulus MX!

31 Oct 2015
Waikawa Beach Weather now running on OS X El Capitan!

31 Aug 2015
Changed link to weather maps. TVNZ have decided (or been forced to) hash their weather images, so these can no longer be easily downloaded. Link now takes you direct to TVNZ site.

20 Aug 2015
Fixed issue with GEONet Earthquake page not working due to change in the headers.

6 Aug 2015
Issues with forecasting may be resolved. GFS advection data wasn't being loaded. Will monitor.

18 July 2015
Earthquake information stopped working. Suspect GEONET have changed their earthquake file format or location. Will have to investigate. :(

21 June 2015
Winter Solstice is upon us! And has it rained! Unfortunately, the rain bucket was full of magpie p**h AGAIN, so it didn't measure the correct amount of rainfall. Have approximated how much fell by taking an average between Otaki and Levin PWS.
Anyone have suggestions on how to electrify a weather station to keep magpies away??!!

5 June 2015
Power outage effected web server during the week. Services now restored.

25 May 2015
Small issue with NOAA reports not getting uploaded each day. Upgraded FTP server and Java last weekend, which could be affecting this. Have logged a ticket with Support :). Meanwhile, daily reports are being uploaded manually.

19 May 2015
Experiencing issues with the Cumulus data log files as Cumulus keeps crashing. Will need to rebuild data and log files for May this weekend, so data maybe in consistent for the rest of this week. Can't really blame the magpies for 254mm of rain in 1 minute!

21 February 2015
Battery replaced on secondary temperature and humidity station, so is now operational again.

20 February 2015
Battery currently flat on secondary temperature and humidity station - will replace soon! As sunshine hours recording seems to be working better for now, will look at Blake-Larsen Sun Recorder later in the year.

31 January 2015
Driest January since records began - only 3.8mm rain!

19 December 2014
Tide page now available again from the menu. Not sure why it stopped working previously!

22 November 2014
Added Feels like back into Extra Sensors page. Updated the Daylight section.

15 November 2014
Waikawa Beach Weather is kindly sponsered and now hosted by InSPire Net. Great service and great people!

25 October 2014
Waikawa Beach Weather is proudly running on OS X Yosemite!

19 October 2014
Successful negotiations have been held with Santa, with a Blake-Larsen Sun Recorder hopefully arriving before Xmas. This will allow actual sunshine hours to be recorded rather than Cumulus estimating the hours based on solar sensor readings.

11 October 2014
Sunshine hours appear to be incorrect from 23 June 2014. This is calculated by Cumulus, so not sure what may have changed. Currently 'tweaking' solar configuration values in Cumulus to see if these figures become more realistic. Oh to have a proper sun recorder!

7 October 2014
Website been offline due to significant power outage because of the recent stormy weather.

5 October 2014
Wind direction and speed gauges back online. Looks like the original wind direction calibration settings had disappeared. May need further slight calibration in calmer conditions but will be monitoring for now.

4 October 2014
Wind direction gauge has failed, so both this and wind speed readings will be offline until a replacement unit arrives. Thanks to Cliff for letting me know :)

20 July 2014
Now that we are passed the shortest day, some of the coldest temperatures of the year have been registered this week. First lot of snow on the Tararua Ranges. The sun is setting right out in front of Waikawa Beach.

22 June 2014
Added additional solar variables to main page to monitor current solar conditions in an attempt to be able to determine "current conditions" based on these readings. Currently using Wellington Airport METAR for current conditions, which is not necessarily accurate for Waikawa Beach.

17 June 2014
Lost power to network switch on Sunday evening. All up and running again now.

8 June 2014
Finally managed to fix the javascript issue not reloading the data from realtime.txt every 10 seconds after initial page load - yay! You should see the values reload (turn green) every 10 seconds now!

20 May 2014
Minified all javascript and css code to speed up the website. Pages loading much quicker now. :)

24 April 2014
Yearly data summary reports now working again! New PHP server version needed the "enable-calendar" option. Yay PhpStorm debugging!

21 April 2014
Webcam image now available 24 x 7 :)

Yearly data summary reports currently broken. Will investigate tomorrow.

4 April 2014
Updated web server components to latest versions. Optimised various pages for faster loading.

2 April 2014
As Autumn approaches, overnight fog starts to roll in again (although with the mild weather so far in April, you wouldn't know it!).

9 February 2014
Updated Yearly Summary code for the UV Index colour range as they were being incorrectly displayed.

8 February 2014
Finished updating highcharts graphs. Recent graphs show the conditions over the last three days, while Historic graphs show the highs and lows over the entire range of weather data.

Yearly Summary information is now also available in tabular format.

1 February 2014
Updated graphs are currently being developed using Highcharts.

26 January 2014
Waikawa Beach Weather is now powered by Cumulus weather software - yay!

22 December 2013
Fixed solar and UV climate reports having no data for 2013. Removed NOAA GFS Forecast link from navigation menu as WXTILES site appeares to be offline...

23 November 2013
Waikawa website now running on OS X Mavericks!

10 November 2013
Replacement temperature and humidity sensor fitted and operational. Readings for Bank temperature and humidity back online.

28 October 2013
Weather Display and WXSIM now running under Windows 8.1.

26 October 2013
Swapped physical temperature and humidity sensors between Davis stations, so primary readings up and running again. Sheltered conditions (a.k.a. Bank conditions) offline until issue with other sensor resolved.

25 October 2013
Primary temperature and humidity sensors on the Davis weather station have failed, so readings are stuck on 13.3°C and 94% respectively. Please use "Bank Temp" and "Bank Humidity" readings on the main page for approximate values until this is resolved.

13 October 2013
Tidied up code for Earthquakes page and increased the separation of different quakes. Now displays magnitudes 2-3, 3-4 and >4.

3 October 2013
Waikawa Beach Weather Forecasting fully operational using correct GFS advection. Additional AutoLearnWX module now configured, which enables WXSIM to "learn" from previous forecasts to provide improved future forecasting. This runs daily and compares the last 90 days.

29 September 2013
Waikawa Beach Weather Forecasting is currently offline due to an issue with WXSIM. Hope to be back soon!

Update 4:04pm: WXSIM forecast is now running, but is experiencing a continued issue with downloading of the GFS advection data, so this is currently disabled. Forecasts may not be as accurate as usual ("accurate" being a loose weather forecasting term...)

25 August 2013
Updated the Earthquakes page to use GeoNet NZ data via their Earthquake Web Services.

11 August 2013
Added summary conditions pages for yesterday and today, kindly provided by New Zealand Weather. Available under the Recent WX menu.

28 July 2013
Upgraded the weather forecasting software WXSIM to 12.10 to make use of recent improvements.

23 June 2013
Winter Solstice is upon us! Thursday 20th saw the lowest barometer reading ever recorded by this weather station of 978.4hPa, along with some other records for this year:

  • Lowest temperature: 2.8°C, 23 June
  • Lowest wind chill: -2.0°C, 20 June
  • Maximum wind gust: 81.4km/h, 20 June
  • Highest average wind: 68.1km/h, 20 June
Evidence of the big storm - the ranges behind Waikawa Beach.

15 June 2013
Updated to latest WD version. Fixed missing climate data for April 2013 and missing Daily Station Graphs for May 2013.

25 May 2013
Waikawa Beach Weather is now fully operational in it's new home. Long may the stability continue! Winter Solstice is approaching...the sun is now setting directly in front of Waikawa Beach.

22 May 2013
Waikawa Beach Weather is now running on new hardware. Woohoo! It may take a little time to get all pages up and running, as it's a work in progress. Non-operational pages have been temporarily removed from the menu, but will return soon.

19 May 2013
Website has been down again today due to 2 simultaneous harddrive failures!! You really wouldn't believe it! Work is underway to migrate the site to new, and hopefully much more reliable, hardware. Hope to be operational on the new hardware next weekend.

17 May 2013
It must be the phase of the moon - the "temporary equipment" running this site died earlier this morning!! Replacement hardware has now arrived, so this website will transition to its new home over the next week.