About annual & monthly sunshine hours maps
How were the maps created?
Sunshine duration data are recorded at a network of weather stations across Australia. The data from these weather stations are stored electronically in the Bureau of Meteorology's database called ADAM (Australian Data Archive for Meteorology).
The average sunshine duration maps were based on daily sunshine data from about 90 weather stations. The daily data were extracted from ADAM and a number of quality control checks were then applied to the data. For example, the data were checked for missing values over the length of the data record.
After the quality checks were applied to the data, monthly and annual averages were calculated for each of the weather stations. An objective analysis technique was then applied to these station values to produce regular gridded datasets (each month and annual) covering Australia.
Finally, the gridded data were visualised in a geographic information system and the colour maps created through this process.
Stations used in the analysis
Daily sunshine duration data from about 90 weather stations across Australia were used to create the average sunshine duration maps. These stations are shown in the map below.
Sunshine duration metadata
The following metadata summary, and detailed metadata file, provide information about the average monthly and annual gridded sunshine duration datasets. For example, information is provided about the format, spatial extents and analysis techniques used to generate the grids.
| TITLE: | Mean monthly and annual sunshine duration data (base climatological data sets). |
| DESCRIPTION: | Mean monthly and mean annual sunshine duration grids. The grids show the sunshine values across Australia in the form of a two-dimensional array. The mean data are based on the period 1900 to 2003 (minimum of 15 years). |
| CUSTODIAN: | Bureau of Meteorology |
| GEOGRAPHIC EXTENT NAMES(s): | Australia |
| AVAILABLE FORMAT TYPE(S): | ASCII row major, Arc/InfoTM grid export(.e00), Shapefiles. |
| SCALE/RESOLUTION | The resolution of the data is 0.25 degrees (approximately 25km) |