WeatherWatch.co.nz has made a few changes to the site today, the start of many more to come over the next few months.

When our site first started we were lucky to file one story a day….now we’re producing several a day – and that’s on a quiet day!  With so many more stories, videos  and photos being uploaded we found that the first story of the day published at 5am was sometimes disappearing off the homepage before the end of the day. This meant our first priority was to add more news headlines to the homepage.

The second change was to widen the page – this means that videos will be displayed at the appropriate size and photos will eventually become larger too.

We’ve added the photo thumbnails to the top four stories, this is to make referencing faster for the news stories you want to read – with the added benefit of making the homepage look more alive.

Finally we’ve added an extra featured photo to the bottom of the homepage (now that the page is wider).

More changes to come…

A More Uniformed Look.  We have more changes to come to the site – including redoing the tiles on the page to make them all match – we’re well aware that over the years some of the tiles have become a bit mix and match.

Featured Videos.  Much like the featured photos we’ll very soon be adding Featured Videos, with our four most recent videos from YouTube displayed on the homepage – and not buried amongst the news stories.

Maps.  This is long overdue – but we’re working to provide you with a range of maps that include rain, wind, swells, sea temperatures, land temperatures – all entirely interactive so you can zoom in to your region, or zoom out to another country, whether for today or into next week!

Forecasts.  We are still a weather news service at heart but have been overwhelmed by the demand from you for us to provide forecasts right across the country.  We’re looking in to it and hope to get back to you in a couple of months.

Better Photo Gallery.  We’re also well aware that our photo gallery is clunky and not so user friendly – rest assured we’re already on to it and a new and better way of viewing our photos will be up and running in the next couple of months.

A Few Bugs.  Finally, while the changes to the site are happening there may be times when the layout looks a little funny or somethings don’t line up.  But don’t worry, we’ll be just updating something behind the scenes.  However if it is annoying you – or appears to not be going away – please don’t hesitate to contact us and let us know as we may have missed something!

Time Line. Some of these jobs will take a few days, others a few months.  Each time we make a significant change, we’ll let you know – and as always, invite your feedback.

WeatherWatch.co.nz would also like to thank Andy Burson from Hit Internet, who is based in Christchurch, and has managed to do some huge behind the scenes work over the past two weeks despite the recent earthquakes.

– WeatherWatch.co.nz