Richie Nichols receives the Bureau of Meteorology’s 100-Year Excellence Award

Richie Nichols is the fourth generation of his family to provide rainfall data to the Bureau of Meteorology. Why the work he is doing is essential in understanding our weather and climate.

Richie Nichols is presented with a barometer for his family contribution to rainfall measurement over the last 100 years by Her Excellency the Governor of Tasmania Barbara Baker at Government House. Picture: Linda Higginson

For 100 years, four generations of the Nichols family have been providing the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) with rainfall data from their property at Richmond.

Tasmanian Governor Barbara Baker presented the family with a 100-year excellence award at the Government House on Monday for their century volunteering for the BOM.

Richie Nichols said it was an honour to receive the award.

“It means a lot because of the recognition – not for myself, but all those who proceeded me and kept the rainfall records – because it’s very important in terms of collecting climate data and how that affects agriculture production.”

Mr Nichols said recording the rainfall measurements was not a complex task.

“The records basically finish at nine o’clock in the morning.

“We go out and measure the rainfall – we’ve got a gauge – then we record that in a book, and then we enter those into a BOM website,

“And we do that every day.”

Her Excellency the Governor of Tasmania Barbara Baker presents Richie Nichols with a barometer for his family contribution to rainfall measurement over the last 100 years. Picture: Linda Higginson

BOM General Manager of Decision Support Services Chantal Donnelly said having people like the Nichols family record rainfall was vital for the organisation.

“So while the Bureau does have a number of automated weather stations around Australia, Australia is a vast country, and it’s simply not enough for us to get a really accurate picture of rainfall across the country,” Ms Donnelly said.

“So it’s complemented by over 4600 volunteers who help us take rainfall records across the country and help infill that information.”

Ms Donnelly said recording rainfall was “really important.”

“We want to understand the totals over long periods of time, and so every point across the country helps us make a good interpolated data set across the country, but it’s really important for understanding the country’s water resources as well.

“For example, rainfall data can be used to simulate the water that comes into our rivers and to model it so we can then predict floods and we can predict water resources in the long term; daily rainfall is a really important part of us being able to understand our riverine water resources as well as what rain falls on country.

“It’s also really important for farmers to understand the variability of rainfall so they can plan for their cropping practices or for their stock practices.”