Weather Camera Captures 20-Year Timelapse of Skies Above New Zealand
A New Zealand weather camera has captured a remarkable 20-year time-lapse showing two decades of changing skies over Lower Hutt — a city close to the capital of Wellington.
Trevor McGavin’s south-facing Lower Hutt weather camera has been recording 640 x 480 pixel images since June 24, 2000.
The timelapse, published by Peter McGavin, is made up of one low-resolution photograph taken at noon every day, played back at 25 frames per second; each second represents 25 days.
The camera was originally installed in the late 1990s to display local weather conditions on McGavin’s website. However, he explains on YouTube that he has been unable to recover any saved images from before 2006, meaning the timelapse covers approximately 20 years rather than the camera’s entire lifespan.
The footage was captured using a 1990s-era StarDot Technologies WinCam Live camera, which records images at 640 x 480 pixels through a serial RS232 interface. Despite being exposed to the elements for decades, the camera is still operating in 2026.
McGavin says the footage has been processed to reduce flicker and restore more natural colors. However, the processing has also contributed to an apparent lack of sunshine in the video, with some viewers questioning why the skies appear persistently cloudy.
He explains that several factors create this impression. The deflickering process blends cloudy frames with sunny ones, while the extremely fast playback makes individual weather changes difficult to distinguish. The camera’s aging CCD sensor has also gradually lost its sensitivity to blue light, making clear skies appear gray. Dirt accumulating inside the lens has further contributed to the hazy appearance.
These effects become more pronounced toward the end of the video. McGavin points out that Lower Hutt actually averages more than 2,000 hours of bright sunshine annually, adding that sharp shadows visible throughout the footage are evidence of sunny conditions.
The timelapse also offers a glimpse of seasonal changes in the Southern Hemisphere, where seasons occur at opposite times of the year compared with the Northern Hemisphere.
Other details are less immediately obvious. The black cylinders visible on the roof are rain gauges, while the trees in the background include native New Zealand species such as totara and pohutukawa, which retain their leaves throughout the year.
Snow is particularly rare in Lower Hutt. McGavin says the only snow to settle on the ground during the 20-year period fell on the afternoon of August 15, 2011, and had disappeared by the following morning.
