A long time ago, weather forecasters had to rely on people like lighthouse keepers to tell them what the weather was doing. These people would check instruments by hand and send in their observations by telegraph.

These days, things are a lot easier. We now have automatic weather stations that do most of the work for us.

We all look out the window to see what the weather is up to. In a similar way, MetService meteorologists are always checking to make sure what they have predicted is actually happening.