Residents around many parts of the country have woken up to a blanket of snow this morning.
For some, this means a struggle to get to work and m any will choose to stay at home. Thousands of students will also be at home today after high schools and universities close.
All of this plays a part on the country’s use of the web. This can result in a number of unusual results in our website statistics, particularly for a Monday when most people would be starting their working week.
This video shows some of the snow around Christchurch this morning and explains how people might be using the Internet differently today.
Video Transcript:
Hi, my name’s Mark from NZS.com. As you can see behind me there’s a lot of snow around today and a lot of people are going to be stuck at home.
You might be wondering why an Internet company has an interest in the weather. Really anyone who’s interested in their website statistics should definitely be looking at them today and comparing them with the past because the Internet traffic will change quite a bit with the weather, surprisingly enough.
A lot of people probably stuck at home today. The universities will be closed, a lot more students at home so perhaps search traffic will rise for terms related to students like student jobs, courses, all that kind of stuff.
Obviously the morning will start with heaps of people searching for snow reports, road closures, so that they can find out whether they can get to their place of work.
If they can’t, or even if they can, a lot of staff will be at home so today’s going to be a really good opportunity for business owners and business managers to spend some time online – on their own website, on their search engine presence to see how well they’re doing in search results.
It’s a good chance to look at that and to look at opportunities that might lie in social media to get a bit more presence out there. There’ll be a lot of things that they’ve been wanting to do to their website, to their blog, to their newsletter that they might have been putting off for a long time because there’s too much other stuff going on.
There could be a lot of searches for website design ideas and things like that perhaps. Plenty of that on NZS.com of course. nzs.com/website-resources – you can see that straight from the home page on the menu. Jump in there, have a good look around, there’s a lot of contributors from across New Zealand, all web professionals that have all been contributing some articles and guides on how to get the most out of the Internet and out of website design, search engine optimisation, etc.
Check out the blog, nzs.com/blog, have a crank through that. There’s some good tips in there so subscribe and we’ll see you more in the future with some more tips and ideas.
Cheers, stay warm!
If you are looking at your website statistics today in places like Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Central, take a look at our guide to understanding search queries for some key stats to look out for.
It’s been a dark and stormy few days in New Zealand weather this week, and we’re only just starting to see the end of Mother Nature’s turmoil this afternoon. Nationwide flooding has caused evacuations, road closures, rolling ships, power cuts and landslides over the last two days, threatening the homes and lives of New Zealanders in several different parts of the country.
Civil defense emergencies have been declared in several difference provinces. The Marlborough region of the South Island saw the storm carve a 1100 metre swathe down the country, destroying almost everything in its path. Wellington has seen 120 kilometre per hour winds which have toppled trees and cut electricity, and a small tornedo has ripped roofs off houses in Mt Maunganui. The cruise liner Pacific Sun was hit by seven metre swells and 50 knot winds at sea, rolling the ship and injuring 42 people on board 600kms off Auckland. Kaikoura has seen a bus flushed out to sea, and a woman in the Bay of Islands was swept to her death while trying to cross a swollen creek in the Bay of Islands. These are just some of the horrifying events New Zealand has seen over the last 48 hours.
Weather forecasts are showing the storm easing this evening over most parts of the country, with heavy rain becoming occasional, and gusts lessening. People are being allowed to return to their homes in the North Island, however many North Canterbury residents will be forced to brave the night elsewhere tonight.
If you’re able to help out anybody in distress, make sure you’re true to our Kiwi ideal of sticking your neck out for others, and lend a hand to those in need. If you or anyone you know is in need of any emergency services, staff and volunteers are working overtime countrywide to assist wherever they can. Stay safe and rest assured that the worst is over New Zealand!
Do you feel it? While we are officially in the middle of winter, the country has been a-flurry with sunny days this week. We’ve had a few chillers this season (to say the least!) so I was interested to find out when exactly, the cold weather of winter starts to fade in favour of spring breezes.
With the help of the National Climate Database, a New Zealand database of historical climate information, I set out this week to analyse temperature patterns in two of the main NZ centres to determine when exactly we should be expecting a little relief from the weather gods.
I think I’ve uncovered good news too. My (albeit un-meteorologically educated) assessment of the winter temperatures in Auckland and Christchurch over the last two years has determined that the coldest point of the year is the first ten days of July, with a low going down to around -7 degrees once or twice during this period. We’ve just hit July’s double digits today, so my optimism says we’re over the worst, and summer is on the way up! Also interesting to note that both cities rarely are submitted to negative temperatures (i.e. frosty, dangerous mornings!) after around July 23, just two weeks away.
Our brand new weather section was launched this afternoon – now there’s no excuse for getting caught out by the weather! With all the latest New Zealand weather reports, forecasts and updates from MetService, we offer local weather information for your region. You’ll find:
Today’s weather, updated every hour
Weather forecasts for the next four days
Weather reports for North and South Island regions, cities and towns
Information on climate, sunshine hours, rainfall and average temperature
Online, up-to-the-minute weather reports mean you’ll always have the latest information on-hand, whether you’re planning a weekend escape, wondering whether to catch the bus or walk, or just hoping for summer sunshine to arrive. So, get the latest NZ weather reports, now!
