Next generation technology for Kalgoorlie's weather radar

06/05/2021

The Kalgoorlie weather radar is set to undergo a significant upgrade to provide the wider community with more reliable and up-to-date weather information. To make the changes, the radar will be offline for up to 8 weeks.

From Monday 10 May, the Bureau of Meteorology will commence installation of a new digital receiver and control system for the Kalgoorlie radar.

Warnings and forecasts will continue to be published on the Bureau's website www.bom.gov.au and on the BOM Weather app.

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

The Kalgoorlie radar upgrade will take approximately eight weeks to complete. The radar will need to be offline for technicians to complete the work.

During that period the community is encouraged to become familiar with the Bureau's range of alternative sources to find their local weather information.

The Bureau's MetEye service provides publicly accessible images showing temperature, rain and wind information.

The community can also access satellite images from the Himawari-8 satellite. These images are also available from the Bureau's website and show cloud cover and lightning strikes. The South Doodlakine, Watheroo and Esperance radars provide some overlapping coverage to the south.

If members of the community would like assistance locating the weather information they need, they can email the Bureau's Weather Connect team on weatherquestions@bom.gov.au.

The Kalgoorlie radar is one part of a complex weather observation network of around 11,000 assets including satellites, automatic weather stations and flood warning networks.

The Kalgoorlie radar project is part of the most significant upgrade of Australia's radar and observation network in a generation.