BOM installs official weather station in Goondiwindi

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has installed a new weather station in Goondiwindi that will see accurate climate information recorded for the town, following lobbying by Goondiwindi Regional Council.

The new installation follows recent public interest in Goondiwindi’s temperature data, which was predicted to break a December record of 45.2 degrees earlier this month. However, with no BOM weather station in the town, an official temperature was not available.

The new Automated Weather Station (AWS) is located at the Goondiwindi aerodrome and will record the town’s temperature, rainfall, humidity and air pressure. The station will feed updates directly to the BOM, and data will be available to view on the BOM website.

Mayor of the Goondiwindi region the Honourable Cr Lawrence Springborg AM said he believed it was about time that a town the size of Goondiwindi was able to record accurate local climate data.

“I think this is a great achievement for the whole community,” the Mayor said. “Especially in a busy agricultural centre like Goondiwindi, our residents rely on temperature and rainfall data to make decisions every day in their businesses and it’s essential that that information is as accurate as possible.

“I think it’s also very important for our wider community, as we saw at the beginning of December when the weather predictions for Goondiwindi caused a bit of a stir across the state,” Cr Springborg said. “When you're looking at major heatwave events like a few weeks ago, there’s a lot of public interest as it affects a lot of people.

“While we certainly don’t hope to see too many more days of that kind of heat, we are now able to accurately record that data and provide reliable information to residents, which creates better context going forward.

“I’d like to especially thank the Federal Minister for Agriculture, David Littleproud, who has been of great assistance with this project,” Cr Springborg said.

Weather stations are already in place elsewhere in the Goondiwindi region, with an AWS already installed in Inglewood and an official BOM station in Texas, located at the Post Office. Council had also previously installed its own weather station, located on McLean Street, in partnership with the Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) in 2016. However, the station’s recordings are not recognised by the Australian BOM.

“Council previously installed its own unofficial weather station to try to give locals a full picture of conditions, as well as to measure the impact of the weather on the river system,” Cr Springborg said. “We know a few large stations in the area also have their own weather data – but these are private records and we really needed something that was readily available to the public, which we’ve now achieved with this new AWS.”

The Goondiwindi AWS is now live and residents can view its recorded weather information at: http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ60801/IDQ60801.99468.shtml