About Weather Data Pages

Introduction

Historical weather data are provided in a variety of formats - web (html), data (csv), graphical, and print (pdf). In addition, there is a tool to compare data against related climate statistics. Slight differences exist in the content and format of the various data types (eg. monthly and daily rainfall).

Background details and data download

Near the top of the data page are links to Help Pages, including this information page. At the top-right are links to download the weather data in pdf format for printing and text file format (.csv files) suitable for importing into spreadsheets. These files are created at the same time as the html page.

Information about the observing station is provided below these links to help assess how applicable the data are for your needs. Click the 'Details' link for more station information.

The tables of weather data

Weather observations

Immediately above the table of data is a tool which lets you compare data in the table with statistics for the site. The comparison options may differ between products. Statistics such as mean and percentiles are not provided if less than 20 years of data are available. There may be an option to compare the data with statistics calculated over the standard 30 year climate normal reference period (currently 1961-90). There is also guidance about the units and the quality of the data.

Below the table heading, at the top of most columns, is a link to a graph of that column of data.

Some data have dates associated with them - for example, the date of the highest temperature in a month. Dates can be seen by moving your mouse over each of the data in the table. The most recent date will be displayed if there is more than one occurrence within a month . Dates are also included in the data files and print files.

You can link to daily data from monthly pages. In the first column, each year links to daily data for that year and there is also a year selector directly below the table.

Statistics

Below the main table of data is a summary table of climate statistics related to the data in the main table, and a link to plot these statistics.

Page reference

At the bottom of the page is the Bureau's product code for this page, and a unique reference number. Please record this number if you need to contact the Bureau about any aspect of the data you have retrieved. Further information is available from the Bureau, and there may be a charge associated with this service.

Graphs

If you click on the graph icon within the main data table a graph of the corresponding column of data will be generated. An example of one such graph is illustrated in Figure 5. Where appropriate, the graph will also include the corresponding long-term mean, or median in the case of rainfall. Above the graph is a menu which will re-plot the graph with newly selected time period.

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