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Thursday 16 November
Updated links
Updated link on the Severe Weather > Snow page: Snow in Armidale
NSW. Details of snowfalls since 1971 and the conditions
required for snow in the area. Photos and a description of the significant
July 1984 event. (16/11/06)
Tuesday 7 November
New links to sites with recent weather summaries and reports
Updated and new links on the Recent & climate > Recent weather descriptions links page:
- Recent climate summaries and diagnostics from the BoM. Monthly summaries of weather, rainfall and temperatures are given for the nation, for each state and territory and for some capital cities for the most recent month, with an archive of past months. Annual climate summaries are also available, along with many other useful climatic summaries and diagnostics. Older monthly summaries are available in press-release form for ACT | NSW | VIC | TAS | SA | WA | NT | QLD. (07/11/06)
- Monthly
Significant Weather Summaries from the BoM give detailed information
on cyclones, severe storms, wind and flooding for Australia, as
well as statistical data on record temperatures and rainfall.
(17/01/00)
- Current
and recent weather stories from ABC news. (07/11/06)
- International
Weather and Crop Summaries from NOAA/USDA Joint Agricultural
Weather Facility. Updated weekly with an archive back to 1971. Descriptions of crop-related weather
for the US but with a large international section that includes Australia. (07/11/06)
Sunday 15 October
Changes to OCF forecasts
The "confidence factor" shown in AWN's OCF forecast display has been changed. OCF forecasts take the output of many computer models, then examine how they have been performing over the recent past. The display now shows the number of models forecasting more than 0.2mm of rain compared to the number of models used in preparing the forecast, instead of a percentage. So 8/10 tells you that 8 of the 10 models used to prepare the forecast for this day were forecasting more than 0.2mm rain.
Saturday 14 October
New and updated climate change links
Updated and new links on the Recent & climate > Climate change page:
- Climate change in Australia from the Bureau of Meteorology. Descriptions, trend graphs and detailed data (14/10/06)
- Climate change research, from the CSIRO (14/10/06)
- Climate change and El Nino -- resources from the CSIRO and how Australia may be affected. (14/10/06)
- Climate Change and Weather Extremes from NOAA. Leads to a huge set of links to publications, reports, event descriptions, data and natural disaster listings/descriptions (14/10/06)
- Global warming: early warning signs is based around a world map showing the local consequences of global warming. It is a collaborative effort by many organisations including the Union of Concerned Scientists and the World Wildlife Fund. Follow links to these organisations for much more material on global warming. (14/10/06)
- An introduction by the US Global Change Research Information Office and Carnegie Mellon University. (14/10/06)
Friday 13 October
Updated bushfire link
Updated in Severe weather - Bushfires: NT -- For operational information, visit the NT Fire and Rescue Service site. For more general information on bushfires in the NT, visit Bushfire
Council of the Northern Territory. (13/10/06)
Thursday 15 June
New page lists weather societies, forums and publications
Societies, forums and publications is a new page in the Know-how section of the site. It lists Australian societies, forums and publications for those interested in weather.
Thursday 1 June
Bureau monthly, seasonal and other summaries available on AWN
The Bureau of Meteorology produces some excellent weather summaries that are, unfortunately, rather well tucked away on its huge site. These include monthly and seasonal summaries of the weather in each state and territory as well as special summaries for capital cities, all of which are available close to the end of each month or season. A monthly analysis of drought conditions is issued about a week after each month ends. About two months after the end of each month, a Significant Weather Summary is produced, bringing together material from the Bureau's severe weather database for each state, including storm spotter reports.
Links to these summaries are now gathered together on the AWN Daily Weather Summary index page. Those for May are here.
Thursday 25 May
New and updated links
Sunday 26 March
New and updated satellite links
Added to or amended in Current > Satellite links:
Thursday 23 March
Time updated!
UTC clocks have been added to many of the Current Weather pages because so many weather products only carry Universal Time labels so as to overcome time zone difficulties. Also, the following references to time have been updated in Know-how > Time & Units of Measurement:
- Time
conversion -- the time now across Austrtalia
- All about time from the US Navy
- Details of Daylight Saving Time switch-over dates in Australia from the BoM
- How Daylight Saving Time affects weather data collection in Australia from the BoM
Friday 17 March
Useful national link matrix for rain, river and water storage information
Added to Current > Rain and River Data: Links to sites in each state carrying rainfall, river and/or water storage information (17/03/06)
Thursday 16 February
GPATS lightning data available in real time
GPATS (Global Position and Tracking Systems) provides lightning data to the Bureau of Meteorology and numerous lightning-sensitive agencies such as power companies and fire fighters. Real time data is now available freely on the Net. Maps of Australia show lightning strikes (updated each 15 minutes) and intensity (updated each hour), while graphs updated each 3 hours show the strike rates nationally and for capital cities. The capital city strike rate graphs are accompanied by maps showing the location of strikes over the past 24 hours. The link to the GPATS site is on the Current > Radar and Lightning page, just below the satellite image/lightning tracker image, as well as on the Radar and Lightning Links page.
Thursday 26 January
Improved averages on AWN's Daily Data pages
AWN's new climate database provides routinely updated average and extreme statistics for all Australian rainfall and weather stations with records of 10 years or more. This has greatly increased the number of stations showing rainfall, temperature and other monthly average figures in the "norm" column on this month's Daily Data pages. Previous months will be updated at the beginning of February. Use the normal figure and the month-to-date figure right next to it for quick assessment of how the month is shaping up, climatically speaking.
Thursday 26 January
Weather records available in real time
When weather records are set somewhere in Australia, you'll see it first on AWN's Daily Weather Summaries. Record heat, cold, rainfall and windiness now appear soon after the data is received, though beware of imposters -- errors masquerading as extreme observations. See the records help page for more information.
Saturday 21 January
Expanded Records section in the Daily Weather Summary
When it gets exceptionally hot or wet, talk usually turns to records. The records section of the Daily Weather Summary now provides a wider range of information on new rainfall, temperature and wind records set each day, and it is surprising how few days pass without a record toppling somewhere in the country. Since 1 January, only one day (16 Jan) has been record-free.
The section now shows both record high and low minimum and maximum temperatures (it formerly only gave high maxima and low minima). Rainfall records are now shown for all Australian rainfall stations with more than 10 years of observations instead of being limited to about 600 climatic stations. New in the section are record wind gusts, average daily wind speeds and high and low grass minimum temperatures. New or equalled records now also show the date of the previous record, and there is an improved layout for distinguishing between monthly and all-time records. A help section links from each page. I am running the program that updates the DWS records section manually while it is in trial mode, but I anticipate that it will soon run automatically in real time, so that information on potential records will be available the day the records occur.
To see the expanded section, visit any Daily Weather Summary from 1 January 2006 and skip down to Records.
The improved records section is the first product of a new climatic database I have been developing for AWN that holds all Australian daily climatic data, processes this into monthly files, then extracts averages and extremes. The database therefore holds climatic information from the beginning of recorded observations up to the current day. Other products from the database that will appear soon include a complete set of climatic and rainfall averages and extremes for the nation, and a set of monthly averages, totals and extremes for the past year and year-to-date which will be similar to the Daily Data Reports now available on the Recent and Climate link. Both these products will be updated monthly. |
