Warracknabeal applies to Bureau of Meteorology to get weather station
WARRACKNABEAL wants to be on the weather map.
WARRACKNABEAL WANTS to be on the weather map.
Yarriambiack Shire Council has applied to the Bureau of Meteorology for an automatic weather station it is installing at the Warracknabeal airport to be part of the BOM system.
Council’s director of infrastructure and planning James McGee said it would make readings from the site official.
“If you listen to the state forecast they’ll often say ‘Hopetoun temperature was our highest today’ because it’s an official station and they get readings from there,” Mr McGee said. “It certainly makes you known.”
Hopetoun is the closest official BOM weather station to Warracknabeal but at 60km north and into Mallee country, can have significantly different wind and rainfall figures.
Mr McGee said a BOM weather station at Warracknabeal would assist in providing official measurements for natural disaster funding.
“Typically around here natural disasters tend to be wind-related,” he said.
“Wind can be very localised though and, while it might be officially blowing 75km/h at Hopetoun, 120km/h wind at Warracknabeal is not recorded.”
Installation of the weather station is part of a general upgrade of the Warracknabeal airport that will include real-time information on weather conditions being made available through an automatic weather information service.
“If a plane is 20 minutes away or approaching Warracknabeal the pilot can dial in by mobile phone,” Mr McGee said.
“Bureau data on a computer is 30 minutes behind, which is still pretty good but if you’re in an aeroplane you want as good as you can get, particularly if it’s a windy or gusty day.
“It is also going to mean there will be more live data available for the community and in particular, farmers.”
Council is expecting an answer in the next month and, if successful, Mr McGee expects the weather station could be up and running by November.
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