History of the Automatic Weather Station Network

Climate Risks and Opportunities Project (CROP)

In 1981 severe erosion ocurred in the Jerramungup district. This was symptomatic of many areas of the state where soil was being tilled for the growing of broad acre crops. The Department of Agriculture and Federal agencies made money available to research the cause and effects of wind erosion. There were two major thrusts. The first was to build a mobile wind tunnel to measure the effects of different tillage practices, sowing densities and stubble retention on the erodibility of the different soils. The second thrust was to gather data on the weather characteristics that were causing the damage. Little research information was available from the Bureau of Meteorology.

Initially, 2 sites were chosen and equipment installed in November 1982. The first site was at Lloyd and Jenny Chamberlain's property 20km north of Jerramungup. They had suffered, like the entire district, with massive erosion of their sand over clay property and were willing participants in trying to discover more information on the forces facing them in trying to grow crops. The second site chosen was Newdegate Research Station just 80 km north of the Jerramungup site. Erosion had ocurred here but not to the same extent and it was felt that whilst district farming practices were similar they did not receive the severest winds that further south received.

Two more similar sites were added (Merredin 1985, Mt.Barker 1989) that had the same type of equipment. They consisted of a tripod in the paddock carrying a logger to measure the sensors and send the information along an underground cable to a computer housed in the Chamberlain's farmhouse and the research station offices respectively. Each minute the logger measured the signals from wind speed, wind direction, solar radiation, air temperature, soil temperature, relative humidity and rainfall. It then sent the information along the underground cable to the computer listening in the office. A data storage tape on the computer was replaced weekly and the data sent by post to Perth.

In 1989 a climatologist was appointed to complement the research and broaden the uses of climate data relating to Agriculture. Issues such as drought, Greenhouse and El Nino are all now addressed.

In 1989, 4 other sites were installed (Badgingarra, East Beverley, East Chapman and Chapman). These sites had the same equipment to measure and log the data but instead of recording 1 minute data on computer tapes the logger recorded 1 hourly data on standard audio tapes. In 1990 Morawa and Esperance were added to the network with Wongan Hills and Vasse running a logger and sensors locally made by Unidata Aust.

By October 1992 a new logger and storage device became available from Datataker Aust. This logger was combined with sensors from other companies as previously used on the other weathers stations. From 1992 to 1998 these types were installed at Mullewa, Manjimup, ManyPeaks, Mingenew, Salmon Gums, Mt.Howick, Medina, Kalannie, Scaddan and Wellstead. The main starage device was a removeable card which was posted to Perth each week, fortnight or month depending on operators. Latterly some of these sites do not replace the data cards but access the logger direct with a portable computer to download the data. They then E-Mail the data to Perth from their local office. Existing sites at Morawa, Wongan Hills, Vasse, Chapman, Badgingarra were also converted to the new logger.

Because of the ageing computer technology at Jerramungup, Newdegate, Merredin and Mt.Barker a new recording system has been under test using an IBM compatible computer at Newdegate. The data is on standard floppy disk and is removed and the data E-mailed direct to Perth from the local site. These stations still record 1 minute data.

There are many other trial sites using similar equipment and some sites recording only a few sensors such as temperature and rainfall. A series of recording raingauges is also visited twice a year on the outer fringes of the farming areas in the south east.

Data sent to Perth was originally stored and preocessed on the Department's mainframe computer. The data was imported and exported to reports using the Fortran programming language. By 1996 the age of small mainframe computers was waning and the data was transferred to a high storage capacity PC. Again the language used was Fortran because the data and programmes could be transferred without major rewrites of the programmes.

Whilst there is a delay in the data reaching Perth the network was not set up to receive on-line data direct from the stations. On-line data is only useful for forecast purposes. The cost to make the stations on-line currently excedes it's benefits unless predictive forecasts are introduced.

The data is retained in hourly and minute data for researchers who need that level of resolution. In the main other researchers, farmers, vets and the industry use the daily data derived from the hourly data. These summaries are posted to users on a monthly basis. Individuals often request data for specific sites for specific periods and receive their data either in paper or electronic form. With increasing Internet access more users are visiting our web site to get their information.

Last update: Fri 22 Aug 2003