The updated Australian Weather News synoptic charts give you 67 huge maps covering the entire globe with particular emphasis on Australia. They are updated hourly with detailed weather information for thousands of locations. Each chart also has its own special home page, including a 24-hour archive for hourly maps and a one-month archive for more detailed charts produced four times a day. Help pages and on-screen diagrams make it easy to understand the plotted weather information, and the regional variations in weather reporting around the world.

The system is Beta testing, i.e. it's time for our enthusiastic users to begin using the system and provide feedback on any problems to be fixed or improvements or changes they'd like to see. There are also quite a few items that still have to be completed, and these are listed here. However, after about 2 months of development and testing, I want the system to go live so that the remaining "to do list" can take feedback into account. Use this link to send me feedback.

How to navigate the maps

1. If you're a first time user or need general help, it is strongly recommended you read the General Chart FAQ & Tutorial.
2. Before you begin, find out the current UTC time using the Time site last updated bar above -- UTC (or GMT) is the time system used for weather charts worldwide. If the UTC time is, say, 13:27 then the latest charts available will be either 13UTC or 12UTC, depending on when each chart is updated. See Chart Update Schedule for this information.
3. For quick access to just the past 24 hours' hourly charts, use the Quick Access Hourly Charts table below. Charts are organised by continent and region with a special section for oceans and poles. Locate the line for the chart you want.
4. In that line, click on the time for the latest chart (in our example, 12UTC or 13UTC) and that chart will open in a new window. If you don't want to use UTC, the equivalent Australian Eastern, Central and Western Standard Time zone times are given at the top of the table.
5. Make sure you are not looking at an old chart! Check that the time the chart was generated (top left corner) is later than the nominal chart time. For example, if you are looking for today's 13UTC chart, check the time is after 13:00 and the date is today. Remember that times on all charts are UTC.
6. For far more information, and even more detailed charts, go to the home page for each chart region - click the name of the region in the Quick Access Hourly Charts table below. The Chart Region Home Page provides a one-month archive of more detailed 3 or 6-hourly weather maps at the main observation hours, details about regional weather reporting methods and regional weather, diagrams kept in front of you to help understand the observations, and a complete navigation system for that region's charts.

• You may find these reference charts useful: World countries (2.8mb) and World timezones (1.2mb)
• If you have any comments on, or suggested improvements to, the maps, I would greatly welcome feedback.

Australian data is provided by the Bureau of Meteorology. International data used is the publicly available synoptic reports produced by national meteorological agencies and distributed over the WMO GTS.