beuro of meteorology

Damian & SilentC are both spot on regarding the history pf meteorology. Interestingly, about 30 years ago one of the European Met or scientific agencies created daily synoptic charts for most of the northern hemisphere for about the last 200 years, based on ships logs and terrestrial observations.

If you'd like to learn a bit more about meteorology, subjects 8004R & 8004S in this course are a good start. The teacher's a bit of a !@#$% though.:D

Damian

your right about the TV weather being a joke.

I worked at the European Centre for Midrange Weather Forcastes for 14 years as part of the team running the super computers doing the calculations. I will scan some of the pictues when we get full power back on. Being in the Bellingen area we have just had the worst flood in living memory and are only on genset power.

After a long night shift you would be watching the morning news and weather forcast and asking if they had actually looked out the window.

The largest clients of the centre was the US and european Navy's with air services close behind.

The Navy interest these days is in wave predictions which is caused and also helps change the weather.

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Originally Posted by Arthur Dyason

Being in the Bellingen area we have just had the worst flood in living memory and are only on genset power.

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Back when I first started working in this field, Dorrigo was always quoted as having the most intense 24 hr rainfall recorded in Australia (1955, I think). Every so often, somewhere else, usually in Nth Qld, would take the record, but somewhere in the Dorrigo area would always get it back.

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Originally Posted by AlexS

The teacher's a bit of a !@#$% though.:D

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He wouldn't be a Dehydrated Hydrographer by chance would he :roll: :q

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Originally Posted by DJ's Timber

He wouldn't be a Dehydrated Hydrographer by chance would he :roll: :q

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:wink:

My ladyfriend's parents moved to dorrigo last year, so we spent 7 days there over christmas. Rained every day, several times a day.

I am sure it has it's appeal, but it woudn't be my choice.

Dorrigo is near the headwaters of the Nymboida River, which is well known as a white water rafting destination. So high rainfall is good, although you don't want it flooding because then it gets dangerous. A guide was telling me they lost 2 or 3 people in one year back in the early 90's.

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Originally Posted by AlexS

That I don't know. They do in ACT, but nowhere else in Australia AFIK. It makes sense, but it's pretty difficult to put a percentage on a forecast. For instance, it might probably rain, but that probablility may be somewhere between 51% and 99%.

As SilentC says, the statistics help you to make a decision, but they don't guarantee anything.

A bit like people talking about a 1 in 100 year storm. People assume that means there won't be another storm like it for 100 years. What it means is that the average recurrence interval for a storm of that duration and intensity over that area at that place is 100 years. You may have another next year or not for 300 years.

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If you go to this heading in BOM, and click the link:

Flood Warnings, Rainfall and River Information

• Queensland Flood Warning Centre

You can then click on
Forecast Rainfall

It will bring up an interactive map which displays forecast rainfall, and also CHANCE OF RAINFALL. SWMBO has found it quite accurate and useful.

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Originally Posted by masoth

BoM radar is not showing the present situation. It is refleced 'sound' and about 30 minutes behind. Thick smoke and dust can fool the radar into showing-up like rain - radar is just one tool used to assist the operator distinguish between weather features.

soth

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First part is absolutely untrue sorry. The radar radiation travels at the speed of light, the images are updated every 6minutes on the BOM site, so the furthest behind the data will be, from realtime is 6 minutes. Looping the images is useful to determine the speed and direction, say, a storm is moving, we use it quite a bit. You can see the time stamps on the images.

CHeers
Michael

Thanks Michael, I wasn't aware that those images werey available.