Tennant Creek Radar Upgrade

The Bureau of Meteorology's new radar at Tennant Creek Airport will be commissioned on the 19th of October, 2005 by Mr Greg Hunt, Parliamentary Secretary who has ministerial responsibility for the Bureau and Senator for the Northern Territory, Nigel Scullion.

The new WF100 radar replaces an obsolete WF3 wind-measuring radar which has operated at Tennant Creek Meteorological Office for the past 32 years. The WF100 will have two roles at Tennant Creek. Firstly, it will provide a weather watch capability providing detailed imagery showing the location, intensity and movement of rainfall, updated every 10 minutes and will provide an important boost for regional weather services. It will also provide forecasters with improved upper wind measurements through closer tracking of a weather balloon target.

Mr Hunt said the radar upgrade is part of a Federal Government commitment of $62.2 million over 5 years to replace and upgrade weather radars across Australia. "It is the first of two radars in the Northern Territory to be funded for upgrade under this initiative, with a new radar scheduled for Darwin in 2007...The new Tennant Creek radar demonstrates the federal Government's commitment to providing quality meteorological services to rural and regional Australia". A total of 15 obsolete radars will be upgraded under the Radar Network and Doppler Services Upgrade Project and a further six advanced Doppler radars are being installed at Adelaide, Melbourne, Yarrawonga, Sydney, Tamworth and Brisbane.