Thursday 1 December
Changes to Daily Weather Summary and home page
The Daily Weather Summary has been slightly rearranged, partly to provide more graphics and partly for ease of maintenance. Each page now shows 6-hourly surface charts and satellite images, making it easier to follow sequences of weather events through the 24 hours. My apologies to those of you on dial-up, as it now takes longer to download, but at least the text should appear first. The records section has been given pride of place at the top, while a new system for putting the text news section of the summary together will allow me more time writing and less time fiddling with technical stuff.

You'll also have noticed changes to the home page. One problem as the site has grown (it now boasts 111,198 pages or graphics to be precise!) has been providing a navigation system that lets you find what you're after. While regular users know their way around the menu system, new users can be baffled. When I started getting requests to add items that were already available, I knew it was time for something like the One-minute site guide now on the home page. Similar Section guides will shortly be added to the main section pages. To clean up the entire page, the previous three news sections have been telescoped into one simple list.

Monday 7 November
New Adelaide and Tennant Creek radars added
AWN's radar pages now carry two new Bureau radar installations. Adelaide's Buckland Park Doppler radar is online, and the AWN display now uses 64km, 128km and 256km images from this installation instead of those from the Sellicks Hill installation. No Doppler images are yet publicly available, but are available to Bureau forecasters and will help to significantly improve the identification of severe thunderstorms. In the Northern Territory, the Tennant Creek radar is online, and brings radar imagery to an area that previously had none. Details of the building of the Buckland Park radar are here, while notes on interpretation of the imagery from both sites are available by clicking the Info link on the relevant radar index page.

Monday 12 September
Improvements to current weather summary
The current weather summary now includes the latest weather map and satellite, radar and lightning strike images for Australia. All may be clicked to produce a recent animation. Use the menu in the green bar to access AWN's current weather products, and the side menu to access current weather links to other sites.

Saturday 10 September
Some changes to site navigation
A few changes have been made to site navigation in the Forecasts, Current and Recent Weather areas of AWN. The changes give all the links on the Weather menu line above a consistent interface, and make a clearer distinction between AWN products and links to external sites.

Thursday 8 September
New links
On the Current > Current Weather on the Web: Observations page:
Observations map for Australia from snow.barratt.com.au. Current weather observations are plotted on a draggable Google Earth map. Click any weather station site for current weather and a graph of the past 3 days. Or access radar and webcams by clicking their colour-coded locations. A brilliant and easy-to-use interactive map that packs a lot of information on your screen. (08/09/05)

On the Current > Current Weather on the Web: Radar & Lightning > Radar & Lightning Links page:
Composite radar and satellite images from Australia and New Zealand from snow.barratt.com.au. A 2-hour animated radar animation of SE Australia updated every 10 minutes, together with static composite radar images for Australia and New Zealand. Also available are radar overlays on the latest satellite images. (08/09/05)

On the Learn About > Meteorological Data page:|
Manual on Codes -- Volume 1 and Volume 2 by World Meteorological Organisation. This is the bible for anyone wanting to decode standard alpha-numeric weather codes such as the SYNOP, METAR, upper air and drifting buoy weather message codes that are used for international exchange of raw data. Volume 1 covers global standards, Volume 2 regional standards (Australia is in Region V. (08/09/05)

Wednesday 31 August
Links updated
Links have been added or updated on the Severe > Snow page:
Snow reports, skicams and forecasts from Ski.com.au. The 24-hour weather station graphs (click in the history column) are particularly useful, as are the NSW, VIC and TAS webcams. (31/08/05)

Tuesday 16 August
Snow data from climatic records

Australia's weather observers report the occurrence or non-occurrence of snow, along with other weather phenomena, in their field books for each calendar day, though this information seldom gets to the public. AWN has tabulated reports from all Australian stations to provide average, highest and lowest annual snow-day counts for all stations where snow has been reported. You'll find these on the snow page under the heading Non-alpine snow, including widespread and unusual snowfalls.

Tuesday 19 July
Real time wind chill and heat stress links

The Bureau's new wind chill and heat stress real time observations are quickly accessed through new links on AWN's Current Weather Reports matrix. To get there by menu, click Current > Observations.

Wednesday 13 July
Additional forecast charts available

The popular forecast rainfall and pressure charts available on the main Forecasts link now show output from four models. They are displayed side by side, like charts on the old weather forecasting office "weatherwall", and though this makes for a large page, it makes it very easy to compare forecasts between models. The charts now include the Australian GASP, LAPS and MesoLAPS models, along with the previous US GFS model. GASP forecasts are shown out to 8 days for pressure and 7 days for rainfall.

Monday 4 July
Macquarie Island real-time observations available

Synoptic observations for the lonely Australian sub-Antarctic outpost of Macquarie Island are now available on AWN. To keep an eye on the weather halfway between Hobart and Antarctica, click Current > Synoptic Obs > Map Select, then click Antarctic Stations on the map. Less exciting, weather-wise, are the observations now available for the Indian Ocean Australian Territories of Christmas and Cocos Islands, which can be reached by clicking Current > Synoptic Obs > Islands, or by clicking Island Stations on the Map Select menu.

Sunday 3 July
Rain and other forecast maps are back

The very popular COLA 10-day rainfall forecast maps have returned, with some additional features. The maps on the COLA site were temporarily unavailable while they were ported to a new internet address (http://wxmaps.org). All references to the new site have now been updated on AWN, including the rain, pressure, heat/cold and storms maps accessed from the forecasts link above. I have also added a useful soil moisture one-week forecast to the rain forecast page, and a two-week average temperature outlook to the heat/cold page.

Sunday 19 June
Additions to AWN radar page

The AWN Radar/Lightning page now carries quick links to national radar animations for the past 8 hours, 1 day and 1 week. The animations, provided by the Bureau of Meteorology, give a useful one-click overview of rainfall in the recent past. To access them, go to Current > radar and lightning and click the links under the main Australian radar image.

Thursday 12 May
Radar and archive now available

Quick access to Bureau of Meteorology radar, along with an archive for the current month, is now available on AWN. Thumbnail images of current radar are available for each state (with QLD and WA divided into two halves), giving a quick overview of the current rainfall situation. Animations at both 128km and 256km scale can then be accessed at a single click. An archive of 256km images every 20 minutes is available for all radar sites, and 128km images are also available for capital cities. To access the new radar pages, go to Current > radar and lightning.

Thursday 5 May
New Australia-wide forecasts on AWN

The Bureau of Meteorology's new Operational Consensus Forecasts are now available on AWN in trial mode. OCF provides the best-yet automated forecasting guidance for over 600 sites around Australia. Daily maximum, minimum and ground minimum temperatures, rainfall, rainfall probability, evaporation and sunshine forecasts are given for up to 8 days ahead using a clickable map for access.

OCF is different to the more familiar meteograms and model output statistics in that it combines the output from up to 8 computer weather prediction models and gives weighting to those that have recently performed best. It learns from its mistakes in real time by making routine comparisons with actual weather. It was developed by the Weather Forecasting Group at the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre (BMRC). The forecasts themselves are accessed off the 7-day OCF Forecasts link on the AWN forecasts page, and there is more information about them on the OCF help page.

Wednesday 20 April
Extra information in the Daily Weather Summary

Daily solar radiation maps for Australia, derived from satellite images by the Bureau of Meteorology, are now available on the AWN Daily Weather Summary pages. Click on the link below the day's maximum temperatures map.

I have also added 24-hour average wind speeds to the 24-hour wind run data, which may help to make more sense of the data.

Wednesday 2 March
Wind run data problem corrected

A problem with wind run measurements that AWN reported to the Bureau of Meteorology last December has been rectified (see earlier report).

The wind run is reported at 9am by many weather stations in much the same way as rainfall is reported. It is simply a recording by a cup anemometer of the number of kilometres of air to blow past the station over the previous 24 hours. While the top wind gusts tend to hog the limelight, the wind run figure is a much better indication of the overall windiness of a day or longer period.

The problem was simple: the Bureau's database recording the wind run was only allocated 3 digits, but wind runs in excess of 1,000km are fairly common and were not being reported. This has now been fixed, and AWN's wind run reports in the Daily Weather Summary and the Daily Climatic Data pages celebrate the fact by showing that 1,418km of wind blew past Maatsuyker Island and 1,226 past Mt Wellington in the 24 hours to 9 this morning.

Sunday 30 January
Current satellite images update

NASA's brilliant MODIS site now has over a dozen subsets of Australian images available in close to real time. The entry on the Current Weather > Satellite page has been updated:

Highly detailed images of Australia (and the rest of the globe) are available from NASA's MODIS Land Rapid Response System within an hour or two of real time. Go here for Australian regional subsets of images, and here for the full day's global images. While the primary objective of the site is to spot bushfires (marked out in red), this site currently provides the most detailed satellite images of Australia available freely on the web. They are available at 2km, 1km, 500m and 250m resolution, with the largest resolution images around 7mb in size. Typically, only one or two images of any part of the continent are available on any day, and NVDI images (showing vegetation colour) are also available on all resolutions. Go to the FAQ for help on using the site. The Gallery has some astounding photos, including many of Australia, and is worth a regular visit. (30/1/05)

Tuesday 25 January
River and dam levels link updated

The link to Sydney Water storage information at Current > Observations > Rivers & flooding has been updated:

Daily river levels and dam storage reports for NSW from the NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation (25/01/05)

Saturday 15 January
Bushfire link updates

Links have been added or updated on the Severe > Bushfires page:

NEW:
Northern Australia: Northern Australian Fire Information (NAFI) -- Excellent site with detailed maps covering all of tropical Australia and showing current and recent hotspots and a one-year archive of fire scars. (15/01/05)

UPDATED:
SA -- South Australian Country Fire Service. Select Current Incidents for an achive of fire reports. (15/01/05)
Vic -- Victorian Country Fire Authority. Follow links to News and fire updates. (15/01/05)
WA -- Fire and Emergency Services Authority of Western Australia. Currently a promotional brochure with some brief hints on managing for miscellaneous disasters. No fire reports. (15/01/05)
Tas -- Tasmania Fire Service. A sweet, quick-loading site. Follow the link to Current Bushfires & Weather for a map and incident reports. (15/01/05)
ACT -- ACT Fire Brigade. Mostly static material, but incident reports may be found on the ACT Emergency Services Authority site. Click on Media. (15/01/05)
NT -- Bushfire Council of the Northern Territory. Good sections on satellite fire mapping and fire research. (15/01/05)
AUS -- Australasian Fire Authorities Council -- AFAC is a peak representative body for fire and emergency services in Australia and New Zealand. Their site contains strategic and link information rather than operational information on bushfires. (15/01/05)

Sunday 9 January
State extremes page improvements

The AWN State-by-state Daily Extremes page has been upgraded and is now being archived. The page, which is accessed off Where's hot, cold, wet and windy now above, now takes data from AWN's new climatic database which should overcome reliability problems. New sections have been added to include sunshine and wind data, while the colour scheme now matches other data presentations on the site.

The page is now being archived, and can be accessed from each day's Daily Weather Summary, where a set of links has been added below the top banner to make navigation easier.

Saturday 8 January
2004 rainfall spreadsheet

An Excel spreadsheet containing 2004 monthly and annual totals for all available Australian stations is available here. Right click and save to your hard disk (~1.6mb). The format is the same as AWN offered for 2003 rainfall last year, and is handy for those that like to manipulate the data for their own purposes.

Wednesday 5 January
Help for those that want to save Daily Weather Summaries

If you've been trying to save AWN's Daily Weather Summaries to your hard disk without success, help is at hand. Go to the Daily Weather Summary help page for several techniques.

Monday 3 January
New links for WA river and rainfall data

A change to the WA Dept of Environment has resulted in new links for WA river height and supplementary rainfall data. WA, alone among the states, manages its own monitoring of river heights and issue of flood warnings; in other states this is done by the Bureau of Meteorology. The new links are on the WA Rain and Rivers page off the Current link.