The majority of Australia's weather radars are operated by the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), an executive agency of the Australian Government. The radar network is continually being upgraded with new technology such as doppler and dual polarisation to provide better now-casting. Doppler weather radars are able to detect the movement of precipitation, making it very useful in detecting damaging winds associated with precipitation,[1] and determining if a thunderstorm has a rotating updraft, a key indicator of the presence of the most dangerous type of thunderstorm, a supercell.[2][3][4]
Bureau of Meteorology weather radars
Radar sites of the network. Indicative radar coverage in 2022. Inner radius (100 km) indicates better coverage. Outer radius (200 km) indicates worse coverage. Note: Does not show coverage degradation from obstructions.
The transition to polarimetric (dual-polarised) radars began in 2017 with the upgrade of 4 Meteor 1500 radars located in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Sydney.[7] The network has further been enhanced through the installation of 8 new polarimetric Meteor 735 radars across WA,[8]NSW[9] & Victoria,[10] and two polarimetric WRM200 radars[11] manufactured by Vaisala, one to replace the radar in Dampier, WA which had been destroyed by severe tropical cyclone Damien in 2020, and one to replace an ageing radar near Gove in the Northern Territory. Six new Meteor 1700s were also installed between 2021 and 2023, 5 located in Qld,[12] and 1 in Perth, WA,[8] all equipped with dual polarisation technology. All the radars with the model name 'Meteor' were manufactured by Selex ES, now Leonardo.
Specifications are available for the Meteor 735, Meteor 1700, and the Vaisala WRM200.
The radar suffers moderate beam obstruction between approximately 70° and 130° due to an area of elevated terrain, meaning there is an underestimation of rain intensity in the lowest radar tilt between the same bearings.
In November 2023, a new radar replaced an ageing WSR-74.[23] The radar suffers beam blockage on the tilts 0.6° and 0.83° to the W and SW of the radar, leading to an under-representation of reflectivity values between those bearings.
The data which CPOL has collected is used to study the microphysical and dynamic properties of thunderstorm convection in Darwin, Australia, enabling the improvement of atmospheric models' representations of the convection formed during the pre-monsoon buildup and active monsoon.[34][35]
The CP2 Research radar was a 1970's era radar, which the BoM received as a gift from the NCAR in the United States. The BoM retrofitted it with modern parts which gave it the unique ability to collect data at two frequencies, S and X band. The upgrades also provided state of the art dual polarisation and doppler technologies. The CP in its title stands for cloud physics, and the radar has been used to research thunderstorms, drive improvements in rainfall measurements and hail detection and explore the potential for cloud seeding. [36]
Ocean Pol
N/A (Mobile radar)
22m
Active (22/3/2015-)
N/A
C
Yes
Yes
This research radar is installed on the RV Investigator, an ocean research vessel. The radar collects data on research voyages, including trips to Antarctic waters, Heard Island and circumnavigations of Australia. [37]
This research radar is operated by the University of Queensland and has been involved with research to improve hail detection and hail size prediction algorithms,[39] and also with research into bushfires and pyroconvection as part of a $1 million google.org philanthropic venture.[40][41]
^Dr Joshua Soderholm; Prof Hamish McGowan; Dr Matthew Mason. "Storm Hazards Testbed"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 28 May 2023. Retrieved 28 May 2023.