Preparations for new West Takone weather radar to begin early 2016

10/12/2015

The Bureau of Meteorology will upgrade the West Takone radar in 2016, with the radar offline when work commences early February.

The new radar will provide higher resolution rain and Doppler wind images on the Bureau's website from early April 2016.

The installation will require the existing radar to be offline for about two months from February. During that time, the Bureau will continue to provide all the usual forecast and warning services to the people of Tasmania.

The community of north west Tasmania can also access local weather information by visiting the Bureau's website, viewing images from the site's Himawari-8 Satellite viewer and using the MetEye forecast service.

Bureau of Meteorology Tasmania Regional Director, John Bally, said: "The people of north west Tasmania will benefit from the upgraded features of the new radar, which include scans every 6 minutes instead of every 10 minutes, Doppler capability to provide wind information and more detailed and reliable rainfall monitoring.

"This upgrade will help forecasters to more accurately detect and monitor severe weather events. Our local communities, and stakeholders including the emergency services, mining and agricultural businesses, will be able to better track local weather."

The replacement radar will be located at the same site in Loones Hill, West Takone, where the current radar was installed in 1995.

Mr Bally said: “High quality weather radar is particularly important to the people of north west Tasmania because that region sees some of Tasmania’s most severe storms.

“Storms often intensify near the north west coast as warm, moist Bass Strait air is forced against the foothills of the Great Western Tiers by strong north west winds.”

To learn more about radars, visit the Bureau's Weather Watch Radar webpage.