The recent wet weather that has seen the eyes of Clarence Valley residents looking to the Bureau of Meteorology’s Grafton radar for approaching weather conditions has raised more questions than answers about what is going on in the atmosphere.
Last week the CV Independent received reports for the second time this year that the Grafton radar was malfunctioning, with complaints that the weather being displayed on radar images did not correlate with the conditions on the ground.
Reports received stated when rain showers fell across the valley they weren’t appearing on radar images, cloud cover wasn’t being shown and weather systems weren’t being displayed accurately.
A spokesperson said The Bureau of Meteorology was aware of ongoing image quality issues with the Grafton radar due to aged components.
“Bureau technicians will continue to conduct regular maintenance on the radar and minimise image disruption as best as possible,” the spokesperson said.
“The Bureau has commenced planning upgrades for the Bureau’s radar fleet, including the Grafton radar, to dual-polarised doppler radar technology over the next 5–10 years.
“The benefits will include improved rainfall rate measurement, better short-term forecasting of rainfall and severe weather, and identification of hail.”
The spokesperson said Clarence Valley locals can access other information about local weather conditions.
“The Bureau’s weather forecasts, and weather warning service has been designed so that it is resilient and not dependent on any one piece of equipment,” the spokesperson said.
“The Grafton radar is one part of a comprehensive weather observation network of more than 11,000 assets including satellites, upper atmosphere monitoring, automatic weather stations, ocean buoys and flood warning networks.
“Communities can also access the Bureau’s MetEye service which provides publicly accessible images showing temperature, rain and wind information and communities.
The Himawari-9 satellite images which show cloud cover and lightning strikes.”
To access the MetEye service visit http://www.bom.gov.au/ australia/meteye/.
This article appeared in the Clarence Valley Independent, 10 July 2024.
