Tuesday, 8 February 2005

MEDIA RELEASE - HEAD OFFICE

Using technology to enhance weather observations

In its ongoing quest to provide the best possible weather observations for Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology is benefiting increasingly from advances in technology.

The national weather radar network is currently undergoing an upgrade as part of a $62 million federal commitment to ongoing service improvement for the Australian community. This includes upgrading 15 weather watch radars across Australia and installing six new Doppler radars with double the resolution of weather watch radars in Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Tamworth and Yarrawonga.

In addition, the number of automatic weather stations, which provide continuous hourly data throughout the day and night including many in remote areas, has grown from 71 in 1990 to 542 today.

During the recent unprecedented weather conditions across four Australian states, access to a range of remote sensing and automated technologies including radars, satellites and automatic weather stations, enabled the Bureau to consistently monitor and forecast changing conditions and issue regular warnings and updates throughout the day and night. However, greater application of technology also brings with it a reduced reliance on traditional manual methods as part of the Bureau's national observing network.

The Acting Director of Meteorology, Dr Bob Brook, today announced a planned reduction to contracted manual weather observations. Manual weather observations complement data from the Bureau's national observing network of 59 staffed field offices, 60 weather watch radars and 542 automatic weather stations. Through international agreements, the Bureau also accesses high-resolution data in real time from a wide range of weather satellites.

"Over many decades manual weather observers have made a valuable contribution to the national observing network and will continue to be an important part of the Bureau's delivery of weather services to the Australian community," Dr Brook said. "However, the relative importance of manual observations has declined due to the emergence of automatic weather stations, weather watch radars and satellites. The Bureau aims to provide the weather service that best meets the needs of the Australian community and this means using the best possible mix of science, technology and people to provide our data and deliver our services."

Of the 334 manual observer stations contracted by the Bureau, 171 will continue an unchanged program of observations and 18 will be closed. At 145 sites, observations will generally be reduced to the core daily times of 6am (first daylight observations, particularly for aircraft), 9am (vital rainfall and temperature data) and 3pm (especially for evening media reports). Australia's 5500 volunteer rainfall readers around Australia will continue to record rainfall at 9am daily.

Further information:
Dr Bob Brook, Acting Director of Meteorology, tel: (03) 9669 4558 or 0407 059 845
Dr Sue Barrell, Assistant Director (Observations and Engineering), tel: (03) 9669 4222 or 0419 945 320
Gary Foley, Regional Director (Western Australia), tel: (08) 9263 2210 or 0439 992 180
Jim Arthur, Regional Director (Northern Territory), tel: (08) 8920 3801 or 0417 475 269
Andrew Watson, Regional Director (South Australia), tel: (08) 8366 2643 or 0418 892 257
Steve Pendlebury, Regional Director (Tasmania and Antarctica), tel: (03) 6221 2001 or 0428 584 080
Mark Williams, Regional Director (Victoria), tel: (03) 9669 4968 or 0417 519 795
Barry Hanstrum, Regional Director (New South Wales), tel: (02) 9296 1660 or 0438 213 270
Geoff Crane, Acting Regional Director (Queensland), tel: (07) 3239 8739 or 0419 786 965

Ends