THE Bureau of Meteorology has this week introduced a seven-day forecast for New Norfolk as part of a major upgrading to its services in Tasmania. Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water, Senator Don Farrell, said the new service had brought towns and regional centres into line with a level of service previously available only in major cities.
“Tasmanians will now see an increase in the number of forecast locations, from six towns to more than 30, and the amount of information available,” Senator Farrell said.“The range of town forecasts will also be extended out to seven days, a new benchmark for most towns.”
Thirteen major centres including New Norfolk now receive seven-day forecasts which include weather, wind speed, temperature, fire danger (during fire season) and UV information. A longer list of smaller towns and regional centres including Tarraleah and Lake St Clair also receive a seven-day forecast, but in a shorter form.
The weather bureau has also expanded its range of district forecasts and has split the former Upper Derwent Valley and Central Plateau district into two parts for forecasting purposes. This means the Upper Derwent Valley will have its own forecast, looking four days ahead.
Despite this improvement to forecasting services, there are still no official weather observations conducted by the Bureau of Meteorology at New Norfolk.
The links to the New Norfolk weather forecast can also be found in the menu on the right hand side of the New Norfolk News website.
So far the forecast maximums have been absurdly inaccurate. Today for example was forecast to reach 13 degrees. The BOM website shows it reached 4.2 at Bushy Park, and according to my thermometer it was at most 5 at New Norfolk. According to my records, the error on Bushy Park figures was 6 on Wednesday (i.e. 8 instead of forecast 14), 4 on Thursday, 4.5 on Friday, and 8.8 today. And for all 4 days their forecast for Hobart was accurate to within 1 degree.
ReplyDeleteIf this is the best they can do, their models are useless for inland Tasmania, and they might as well not bother giving us a forecast.
I have a small quibble with your statement "there are still no official weather observations conducted by the Bureau of Meteorology at New Norfolk".
ReplyDeleteThere are in fact official rainfall observations recorded for New Norfolk (West), less than 2km west of New Norfolk. See the records at http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=136&p_display_type=dailyDataFile&p_startYear=&p_stn_num=095081. These records have been kept since June 2008.
This is only rainfall and it is quite true that the BOM does not make any other weather observations at New Norfolk. It is well overdue for an automatic weather station (AWS) to be installed. There is one at Bushy Park, but given the wild inaccuracy of the recently started New Norfolk forecasts, the Bushy Park station obviously does not provide sufficient data to feed into their weather computer models. They should therefore install an AWS at New Norfolk as soon as possible.