News

The department brings more weather on-line

Media release : 21st June 2008

Farmers in the northern agricultural area have access to even more weather information, with the Department of Agriculture and Food installing two more automatic weather stations in the region.

The new stations, situated at Binnu and Morawa, report data directly to the department’s website on a minute by minute basis.

Department climatologist Ian Foster said with the new stations, the department now had 23 live stations from Kununurra to Pemberton, and east to Esperance.

“We also have an additional 23 stations that can be accessed via phone modem, making a total of 46 state wide.”

Dr Foster said as well as the current climatic conditions, the weather station data also included evaporation and delta T values.

“Evaporation information is important as it is used by irrigators in the horticultural industry to schedule water usage more efficiently,’ he said.

“This data is currently being incorporated into an irrigation scheduling system, developed in conjunction with industry, which can be accessed via the vegetablesWA website.

“The department is also developing displays of chilling hours and other units that are relevant to horticultural crops.

“The delta T information is used in broadscale agriculture to assist farmers in making efficient spraying decisions.”

Summaries from all 46 stations weather stations can be found on the department’s website www.agric.wa.gov.au/climate, with information covering daily, 10-daily and monthly time periods.

Media Contacts

Ian Foster, climatologist	9441 8109
Katrina Bonser/Lisa Bertram, media liaison	9368 3937 / 9368 3325