In addition to the excellent ‘Water and the Land’ ‘Forecast Rain’ map, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology now has a similar ‘Forecast Frost Potential’ map. They are seeking feedback on the usefulness of the ‘Frost forecast potential’ service, so anyone who wants to put their two bob’s worth in, should, without delay. There are many businesses that I imagine would find this frost forecast map useful, in particular fruit and vegetable growers, but also irrigators. Likewise the Evapotranspiration map. The weather bureau collects masses of data, so it is great to see more of it being made publicly available via their easy-to-use website.
It has also been great to see the development of more Australia-wide clickable maps so that anyone with more than a specifically regional focus can quickly and easily check out various regions of Australia by clicking backwards and forwards on a map of the whole of Australia, rather than having to follow a chain of links backwards and forwards to specific areas within regions within states.
Most impressive of all is the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s increasingly specific cyclone development and predicted path forecasts, as illustrated by the accurate forecasts for cyclone Larry and cyclone Yasi. There is an absolute truckload of cyclone information located on the B.O.M. website. To date, Australian cyclone records back to 1970 have been re-examined and corrections made and this list is now online. Checking and corrective work is being done on older data which will presumably be put online also. There are maps showing exact track paths which will totally diffuse all future arguments about what cyclone occurred when and where, and lists showing wind speeds, a very common cause of conversational disagreements during the northern wet seasons.
Tags: Living in the country and remote areas, Conservation and the environment