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Synoptic Chart Update Schedule Hourly charts (top menu/Quick Access Hourly Charts menu) Hourly charts, which are archived for one day, are based mainly on aviation METARs (meteorological aviation reports), and are updated to the following hourly routine. H+10 means 0010, 0110, 0210 etc
Detailed international charts (side menu) The charts are for main observation hours and are much more detailed than the hourly ones. They are based on SYNOP (synoptic) reports, are each updated several times so as to capture late-arriving data, and are archived for one month. They are available every 3 hours for Australia and every 6 hours for the rest of the world. In all of the world apart from Australia, the "main synoptic hours" are 00, 06, 12 and 18UTC. There are also "intermediate synoptic hours" at 03, 09, 15 and 21UTC, although many countries do not make their data for these observations available through the WMO GTS. At present, the AWN international charts are only available for 00, 06, 12 and 18UTC. Note that the charts are recreated several times so as to pick up late data, and this is shown by having several "acquired" and "available" times. The schedule for their production is:
Detailed Australian charts (side menu) Australia is different. Our domestic observation pattern has not changed since the late 18th century, with a major observation taken at 0900 clock time, and a secondary one at 1500 clock time. Other synoptic observations are taken at 00, 03, 06, 12, 18 and 21 clock times. While Austalia's advanced network of automatic weather stations means that we can provide a very basic set of standard hour observations for the WMO at 00, 03, 06 etc, you need to look at the non-standard hour, clock time observations for any real detail. Think about it and you can see the problem. Take the 9am chart, which is the major observation across Australia. 9am occurs in QLD, NSW, VIC and TAS at 2300UTC, but 23.30UTC in SA and NT and 0100UTC in WA. In daylight saving it gets even worse. 9am occurs at 2200UTC in NSW, VIC and TAS, 2230UTC in SA, 2300UTC in QLD, 2330 in NT and 0100UTC in WA. So, a chart for 0900 clock or local time will take 2 hours - 3 hours during daylight saving time - to fill while the clock time of 0900 makes its way across all the Australian time zones. As a result, the detailed charts for Australia always fill gradually. During normal time, the observations for eastern states (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania) will appear on the chart half an hour before those for South Australia and Northern Territory and 2 hours before those for Western Australia. During daylight saving time, those for NSW, VIC and TAS will appear half an hour before those for SA, an hour before those for QLD, 1.5 hours before those for NT, and 3 hours before those for WA. Note that the charts are recreated several times so as to pick up late data, and this is shown by having several "acquired" and "available" times. The schedule for their production is:
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