Hobart weather radar upgrade will deliver more reliable and up-to-date information for Tasmanians

21/09/2022

Issued 2.30pm, 21 September 2022

Tasmanians will be able to access more reliable and up-to-date weather information, with the Bureau of Meteorology set to complete significant upgrades to Hobart's (Mt Koonya) weather radar.

From Monday 3 October, the Bureau of Meteorology will commence the installation of a new digital receiver and control system for the Hobart (Mt Koonya) weather radar.

To make these changes, the weather radar will be offline for up to 8 weeks. It is expected to be back online in late November.

There will be no impact to forecasts and warnings, which will continue to be published on the Bureau's website www.bom.gov.au and on the BOM Weather app, as forecasters draw on a range of sources to inform their predictions.

During the period the weather radar will be offline, those members of the community who usually view the Mt Koonya weather radar webpage are encouraged to instead view the Hobart Airport weather radar. Alternatively, the NW Tasmania radar image provides some overlapping weather information for the Hobart region, when the 512 km view is selected.

The Bureau's MetEye service provides publicly accessible images showing temperature, rain and wind information and satellite images from the Himawari-8 satellite, also available on the website.

The upgraded radar system will improve tracking of winds, quality of rainfall images and predictions for severe storms.

This radar upgrade is part of the Bureau's work to continuously enhance and improve the Australian radar and observation network of more than 11,000 assets including satellites, upper atmosphere monitoring, automatic weather stations, ocean buoys and flood warning networks.

ENDS