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Tuesday 7 November
Bureau's monthly weather summaries upgraded

The Bureau has for several years issued press releases early each month giving climatic highlights, rainfall and temperature data and brief weather descriptions for the previous month for most states and some capital cities. These have been useful but inconsistent in their coverage and depth.

This is now changing with the introduction of a new Recent Climate - summaries and diagnostics section on the Bureau's website. Monthly weather summaries for each state and territory, as well as some capital cities, are posted soon after the close of each month. There is an archives section that currently holds summaries back to last June. A very handy addition is an Australia-wide weather and climate summary for each month. This provides new rainfall and temperature spatial summaries for the nation, each state and the Northern Territory. For example, the maximum temperature table in the September report shows that the average maximum temperature across VIC was 2.38 above normal, making it the second warmest September in the past 57 years for which state-wide averages are available.

The new page is at this URL, and there are links to it on the Other weather event archives section of AWN's Daily Weather Summary, as well as on the Recent weather and climate descriptions links page.

Thursday 26 October
New Warrego radar commissioned in SW QLD

The $1.6m Warrego radar, situated at Dulbydilla, about halfway between Charleville and Mitchell, was opened by the Federal Member for Maranoa, Bruce Scott, today. The new installation replaces the Charleville radar, opened in 1983, for weatherwatch duties, though the Charleville radar will continue to be used for upper-air balloon tracking.

Speaking at the opening, Parliamentary Secretary with ministerial responsibility for the Bureau of Meteorology, Greg Hunt, said the new facility will provide better data and cover a wider area. "The new location for the radar will continue to detect rainfall activity well to the west of Charleville and will also provide improved coverage of areas to the east including Mitchell and Roma," Mr Hunt said. "The new radar's practical limit of coverage extends southwest to the town of Cunnamulla and southeast to the town of St George and to the north the coverage extends to the southern limits of the Carnarvon National Park along The Great Dividing Range."

Images from the new installation are available on AWN's southern QLD radar page.

Friday 13 October
Radar outages and returns

Adelaide's Sellicks Hill radar and Darwin's Berrimah radar will be out of service for several weeks to improve the services they offer. Sellicks Hill radar will have an infrastructure upgrade and will be unavailable from 23 October for about 3 weeks. Adelaide will continue to be served by the new Buckland Park Doppler radar during this time. Berrimah radar was taken out of service on 10 October to be fitted with a new digital signal processor which will improve its ability to identify and remove spurious signals. During the two weeks it is out of service, radar images will be available from the nearby Darwin Airport radar.

Willis Island radar, off the Queensland North Coast, has had a major refurbishment, and is likely to be recommissioned on 3 November in time for the tropical cyclone season.

Thursday 28 September
Warrego QLD radar opens 26 October

The new Warrego Radar at Bulbydilla, roughly halfway between Charleville and Roma, is scheduled to be commissioned at 11am on Thursday 26 October. Live data from the radar will be available from this date. The radar replaces the old Charleville Radar, providing much better rainfall coverage for SW QLD.

Monday 20 August
Work on SW QLD radar delayed

The Bureau's new Warrego radar, which was due to be commissioned this month, will now not be operational until October. ABC Radio has reported that the contractor setting up the power supply has been diverted to the Innisfail region to assist with the cyclone Larry reconstruction effort.

Friday 11 August
The climatic impact of a failed weather station

The Automatic Weather Station at Julia Creek in Queensland's Gulf Country returned to service today after technical problems caused its closure on 18 April. Technicians had to replace 1.5km of cabling to eliminate interference on a data line. The resulting gap of nearly 4 months is the only significant break in a climatic record that goes back to June 1912, when weather observations began at the Julia Creek Post Office. The AWS replaced this manual weather station in September 2001. Rainfall records continued to be taken at the Post Office until February 2005, but were then discontinued.

The interruption highlights a problem that AWSs present in maintaining a continuous climatic record. A number of major centres, such as Tamworth NSW, now rely completely on an AWS for their weather and climatic monitoring. When the AWS fails, as has happened repeatedly at Tamworth and other centres, there is no record at all of the centre's weather for that period, and any rain that falls is not measured. This in turn produces incorrect monthly and annual rainfall totals. By comparison, missed rainfall observations are not as critical at manned stations -- if the observer misses an observation, the rain simply waits in the gauge to be read at the next observation.

Julia Creek is the only climatic station in a large part of the QLD Gulf Country. It is difficult to understand how it could have been allowed to remain out of service, with no backup observations or climatic record available, for four months.

Tuesday 11 July
Coastal weather station site details

In response to requests from marine users, the Bureau has provided brief information on all weather station sites used in its coastal weather reports. Mariners are most interested in the location of weather stations relative to the coast, and any nearby landforms that may distort wind flow. The information is summarised in tables for each state that give elevation, number of kilometres from the coast and information about the anemometer site for each station. A link to this page has been put on AWN's Current Observations Matrix page, on the coastal observations line.

Thursday 6 July
Brisbane Doppler Radar to be commissioned

The Mt Stapylton Doppler Radar near Beenleigh, south of Brisbane, will be commissioned on 4 August. It is the second of six high resolution Doppler radars to be installed as part of the Australian Government's overhaul of Bureau radar facilities -- the first was in Adelaide on 28 October last year. Go here for maps showing the Mt Stapylton Radar coverage, pictures of the installation and some early test images.

Testing and experience so far with the radar has allowed the Bureau to provide the following interpretation notes:

Geographical Situation
The radar is located on an isolated hill about 150m above mean sea level, just east of Beenleigh. This site provides good low-level coverage, ideal for Doppler observations, of the Greater Brisbane area. The Great Dividing Range to the west and the Lamington Plateau to the south, reduce the radar's view from the south through to the west, affecting its ability to detect weak rainfall from low clouds beyond these obstructions. The radar's coverage, based on detecting echoes at an altitude of 3000m, extends to a range of about 200 km in the north to Tin Can Bay, then if follows a smooth arc through the east to the south-south-east, where it rapidly reduces to about 150 km at Evans Head. Inland it extends in a ragged arc from Evans Head, to Casino, Tentefield, Stanthorpe, Karara, Dalby, Kingaroy and to Tin Can Bay.

Meteorological Aspects
The radar is well sited to detect rainfall from the west through to the north, the east and to the south. Storms that move into, or develop in and around the Brisbane valley may be tracked and monitored effectively. During summertime, rain depressions and storms approaching from the northwest and the north may be readily detected as can any tropical cyclones over the ocean to the north through to the south east. In winter time, rain bearing systems approaching from the southwest and south may be partially obscured by the Great Dividing Range and the Lamington Plateau.

Non-meteorological echoes
In most cases, processing of the radar signal removes permanent echoes caused by hills, buildings and other solid objects, but sometimes a few slip through. These usually show up as small, stationary patches of rain, mostly along the higher ground. On cold clear winter nights these echoes may become stronger or increase in number. During times of strong winds, sea clutter may be visible off the coast to the east. Sea clutter may be distinguished from rain echoes because it does not move with the wind.

Thursday 6 July
Sydney's Kurnell Radar to be upgraded

Sydney's Kurnell Doppler radar, which was commissioned in August 2000, will receive a digital upgrade over two weeks from 7 August 2006. In addition to its specific Doppler duties, which allow 3-D tracking of thunderstorms and also bushfire smoke, the radar acts as a backup to the installations at Letterbox (inland from Wollongong) and Sydney Airport should they fail. The radar will be completely out of service for these two weeks, which are among the quietest in the thunderstorm and bushfire year, and unable to be powered back up even in an emergency.

Thursday 15 June
Australian Meteorological Magazine now available online

The primary meteorological technical and research magazine for the Australian region, the Australian Meteorological Magazine, is now freely available online commencing with the March 2006 issue, just released. AMM was first published in 1952 and is now published quarterly by the Bureau in close collaboration with the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS).

Articles are available as pdf files of individual papers, with titles in this first online issue including
--a climatology of extreme fire weather days in Victoria
--an analysis of the large-scale dust event in central and eastern AUS from 22 to 24 October 2002
--an analysis of dry cool changes in southern VIC, the wind changes with which are of critical importance in extreme fire situations.

The journal's editor, Dr Blair Trewin, says that "Initially, we will be making new papers available online as issues are published, but it is hoped that we will, eventually, also be able to make back issues available online." You can access AMM here, or through the link on the new Societies, forums and publications page in the Know-how section.

Thursday 25 May
New radar for western QLD

A new radar installation is proceeding rapidly in western QLD. Work on construction of a new "Warrego" radar began near Dulbydilla Station on 15 May and is expected to be completed next month and operational in August. Dulbydilla is 60km west of Mitchell and 110km east of Charleville. The radar will replace the existing Weather Watch Radar at Charleville airport, now 23 years old. The new site, on the Chesterton Range at about 590m, will have improved visibility in all directions and will fill a gap that exists north of Moree radar and west of the QLD coastal installations. The existing Charleville radar has one of the worst coverages of all Australian sites, as this map of radar coverage shows. The installation marks the mid point of a $62.2m Australian Government initiative that will replace 15 obsolete radars in the Bureau's national network and upgrade a further six to advanced high resolution Doppler radars.

Wednesday 24 May
Bureau hosts South Pacific Sea Level & Climate Monitoring Project website

The South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project was developed as an Australian response to concerns raised by Pacific Island countries about the potential impacts of human-induced global warming (the "Greenhouse Effect") on climate and sea levels in the Pacific. It was initiated in mid 1991 and over the past 13 years has established a network of high resolution monitoring stations throughout the Pacific. Processed and analysed data has been made available to the international community and information products and targeted training delivered to Pacific Island countries. The long term goal of the project is to "Provide an accurate long term record of sea levels in the South Pacific for partner countries and the international scientific community, that enables them to respond to and manage related impacts."

The Bureau is now hosting the project site.

Tuesday 16 May
Changes to NSW weather forecasts

Major changes have occurred to NSW regional weather forecasts, following the recent expansion of capital city forecasts to seven individual day forecasts. The changes to NSW regional centre forecasts are the first instalment of an Australia-wide reform to make forecasts consistent with the size and relative importance of towns and cities and provide equitable geographic spread. Four-day forecasts are now provided for larger regional centres, with at least one centre in each forecast district. One-day forecasts are provided for an increased number of smaller centres. This means that Griffith, Cobar, Katoomba, Batemans Bay and Port Macquarie now receive four-day forecasts in lieu of the previous one-day forecasts, and Forster, Singleton, Merimbula, Lithgow, Springwood, Young, Ivanhoe, Glen Innes and Narrabri all receive one-day forecasts where previously they had none.

There are downsides to the changes with a reduction of frequency of issue and the amalgamation of some previous forecast products. Regional forecasts are now issued only twice daily, at 5.15am and 4pm; the 11.30am update is no longer considered necessary as any forecast may be updated if conditions warrant it. The state forecast and the old NSW Forecast Policy statement have been combined into one document, giving a day-by-day state overview and a very brief analysis of the current weather situation and expected developments. Those with a deeper understanding of the weather will be unhappy with this further dumbing-down of forecast support information from the Bureau.

Further details, together with a map showing the distribution of the new network, are here. The new forecast links are available on AWN's Forecast Matrix, and include the one-day forecasts, regional centre 4-day forecasts in text format or the whole lot as a table.

Thursday 16 March
New weather stations

Some new weather stations have opened, or are due to open soon, in NSW, VIC and SA.

In SA, Murray Bridge now has an AWS at Pallamana Aerodrome, 12km NW of the city. This provides reports in the hourly, synoptic and recent & climate sections on AWN (district 23B), and complements an existing station just west of town.

In VIC, there are new automatic stations at Westmere and St Kilda. Westmere is 45km south of Ararat in the Western Plains, a relatively data-sparse part of the state. It is funded by the Country Fire Authority and operated by the Bureau, and provides reports in the hourly section of AWN (district 89). The station on St Kilda pier provides wind data only (hourly reports, district 86).

In NSW, a much-needed new station has opened at Springwood in the lower Blue Mountains. Surprisingly for such a long and well-populated area, Springwood has never had more than a rainfall station with the nearest climatic stations at Katoomba (700m higher) and Penrith (near sea level). The new station is manual (i.e. a human observer) and reports at 9am and 3pm. The observations are in district 63 in the synoptic and recent & climate sections of AWN. The station has been funded by reducing the number of observations at Katoomba from 5 to 3 daily. Katoomba station moved from Narrow Neck Road to Murri Street in January.

Plans are also afoot for several new automatic stations in NSW. These will be at Grafton and Narrandera Airports, at Yamba replacing the current manual observations and at Hay replacing the aging CSIRO AWS.

Thursday 19 January
New Melbourne warning areas for severe thunderstorms

From about 6 February, the Bureau's VIC Regional Forecasting Centre will begin issuing severe thunderstorm warnings that more closely define which parts of Melbourne will be affected. The Melbourne area has been broken into 9 districts which are clusters of Local Government Areas and are shown on the map below.

Thursday 19 January
Tropical convection experiment launched in Darwin

The Tropical Warm Pool International Cloud Experiment (TWP-ICE), which will run for the next four weeks, was launched by the Hon Greg Hunt MP, Parliamentary Secretary with ministerial responsibility for the Bureau of Meteorology in Darwin today. It is the largest international weather experiment to ever take place in Australia, and will give scientists an insight into the inner workings of cloud systems and the world's climate system. Many of the world's leading climate researchers, hailing from over ten countries and thirty research institutions, will spend a month in Darwin conducting the experiment.

"This is an exciting international weather experiment that will provide valuable information to ultimately improve weather and climate forecasting" said Mr Hunt. "It is the culmination of over three years of planning that brings together over two hundred participants. The Bureau of Meteorology is a major player in both the planning and collection of the data with many of its key scientists taking part."

The TWP-ICE partners include the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, Airborne Research Australia, the US Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program, NASA , and a consortium of universities in Australia, the US, Canada, Japan and Europe. The experiment will be supported by the RAAF.

The experiment will focus on an area about 250km in radius based on Darwin. Weather balloons will be launched every three hours from five sites to collect information on the heat and water exchange in the atmosphere. Intensive measurements will be taken in and around the clouds using several research aircraft supported by ground and sea-based radar, and weather satellites. Australia's National Facility for Marine Research, the research vessel Southern Surveyor, will be positioned west of Darwin and will observe the interaction of the clouds and the oceans.

Further information can be accessed from http://www.bom.gov.au/bmrc/wefor/research/twpice.htm

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