Weather radar upgrade for Gascoyne region

The Bureau of Meteorology is upgrading the Carnarvon weather radar. A small section of radar coverage will be unavailable from 6 November 2023.

Purpose

The Bureau of Meteorology is starting works to upgrade the Carnarvon weather radar. From 6 November 2023 a narrow section of radar coverage to the south will be unavailable on the Bureau's website and BOM Weather app.

This is to ensure the works can be completed safely. During this time the Bureau will construct a new radar tower, radome and equipment shelter, approximately 40 metres from the existing weather radar within the Carnarvon Airport precinct. 

From 5 February 2024, the radar will be offline for approximately 8 weeks to complete the upgrade. The upgraded radar will provide improved services to local communities, emergency services, aviation, agriculture, tourism and maritime safety in the northwest Gascoyne region of Western Australia.

Benefits of the upgraded radar will include:

• new capabilities that track the location and strength of wind changes using Doppler technology
• Doppler radars show wind speed and whether the wind is moving towards or away from the radar
• improved rain image quality
• improved severe storm prediction and cyclone forecasting
• increased accuracy and reliability of the radar.

While these works are underway there will be no impact to the Bureau's aviation forecasts and warnings. Forecasts and warnings are informed by observations from a range of assets including satellites, upper atmosphere monitoring and automatic weather stations.

In the event of severe weather during the outage period the existing radar can be turned back on, with a narrow section of radar coverage to the south unavailable. This will allow forecasters and the community to monitor the intensity of rainfall in real-time. (This project is part of the Bureau's ongoing work to enhance and improve the Australian radar and observation network.)