Hamurana Skies has been operating since November 2024. In that time the biggest challenges that we have faced firstly is the quite low frequency of weather suitable for running our astronomy tours. Some of the old hands are saying that this summer was the consistently cloudiest for astronomy in twenty years. Unfortunately, telescopes can’t see through clouds. The second of these challenges has been able finding a reliable and detailed forecast that includes cloud cover percentages.
As on previous occasions today we have a stunning morning at Hamurana which means at least the lawns will get a mow after the heavy rain of the last couple of days. We mainly monitor three forecasts, two of these describe cloud cover and are currently forecasting cloudy conditions between 50% and 70% cloud cover for this evening. Our preference is to operate with less than 30% cloud cover. Tomorrow evening is look more promising with both of these forecasts showing cloud cover below 30%.
The three-weather forecast we choose to use for the purpose of astronomy at Hamurana Skies are:
MeteoBlue who incredibly are based in Switzerland have become our goto simply because they provide a detailed weather forecast that is specifically dedicated to astronomy. MeteoBlue also provide beautiful graphic models based on satellite imagery.
https://content.meteoblue.com/en/private-customers/website-help/outdoor-and-sports/astronomy-seeing
Weatherwatch is a New Zealand based private sector weather forecaster fronted by Philip Duncan and seem to be able to provide a higher degree of accuracy including cloud cover predictions. Weatherwatch use data provided by the Australian Government
https://www.weatherwatch.co.nz
Metvuw provide long-term wider situation map based forecast for the Pacific Ocean region including New Zealand. The service is associated with the School of Ocean and Earth Science Technology of the University of Hawaii and use data from the United States.
https://www.metvuw.com/forecast
