The graphics and statistical information on this page fill gradually as they become available, with some not available until the next day.
The page is updated every 30 minutes at about 20 and 50 minutes past the hour.
For weather news as it breaks that is tagged and organised, use the links on the Weather and Climate Media Reports page.
AWN's climatic archives have a wealth of information
AWN's Daily Climatic Data section is used by many people, usually when they want to establish what the weather was like at any date or year, anywhere in the country, from today back to the beginning of weather records. It is different to other climate information sources in that it sets out in spreadsheet fashion all the data for a whole month for each one of Australia's nearly 120 rainfall districts, all on the same page. This lets you make comparisons across both dates and locations in the same area. Other climate databases online, such as the Bureau of Meteorology's, are excellent but only let you see one station at a time and take more work to get there.
To get to AWN's Daily Climatic Data section, click on Recent and Climate in the top menu on many pages. Then from the green menu select Daily data for the past year by element to get the data sorted by element (all the rainfall together, then all the temperatures, etc), or by station so that each station's complete record is kept together. Clicking either of those brings up a map where you select the district you want - rest your cursor over any district to see its name.
Three clicks from when you started, you have all data for the current month in front of you, and you can go to any previous month over the past year by using the menu at the top. You can also switch between element and station view there. If you want to go back further in time, use the links to the archive and select your year and month from the list that comes up.
The tables make use of lots of handy colour coding to pick out wet, hot, cold, windy and other conditions as well as the extremes for the month. There's more information on that on the help page.
All up, there are over 150,000 pages containing millions of pieces of information recorded by Bureau of Meteorology observers from the cities to the farthest outback cattle stations. The vast majority of observations have been made by people, doing the "9am obs" each day, so it's a remarkable testament to the dedication of tens of thousands of weather-watchers since the earliest records here of the 1830s. And all within a few clicks.
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