Sydney's weather radar to go offline for an upgrade

29/08/2017

Sydney's weather radar at Terrey Hills will go offline at the end of this week for an upgrade that will increase its ability to detect hail and better assess rainfall.

Terrey Hills is one of four Bureau of Meteorology S1 Doppler radars to receive this upgrade. The others are in Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide.

The addition of dual-polarisation scanning will provide a capability that sends out both horizontal and vertical pulses to provide a more detailed picture inside weather systems.

Acting Weather Services Manager for New South Wales, Simon Louis, said the Bureau's nearby radars, at Appin near Wollongong and Lemon Tree Passage north of Newcastle, would provide coverage overlap for Sydney while the works were completed.

"This upgrade has been scheduled ahead of the storm season, when the risk of severe weather is less likely," Mr Louis said.

"Radar is just one of the tools we use to forecast weather, along with satellite, lightning detectors, automatic weather stations and flood warning network rainfall gauges.

"The good news is when the Terrey Hills radar upgrade is completed, forecasters will have an enhanced ability to identify rain, hail, ice pellets or bushfire debris."

The Terrey Hills weather radar will be offline for approximately four weeks from 31 August. During the upgrade the Sydney radar web page and mobile app will be redirected to Wollongong radar.

Another tool available to the public is MetEye (available at:www.bom.gov.au/australia/meteye) which provides graphical forecasts on current weather, rainfall, wind, waves, temperature, humidity and UV index.