A total of 173 weather stations across Western Australia were recently upgraded from 3G to 4G, which together with 19 existing 4G stations will ensure a continued, uninterrupted service when Telstra switches off the 3G network later this year.
The upgrade included stations in the Mid West, Peel, Wheatbelt, Great Southern and Goldfields-Esperance regions, as well as sites near Carnarvon and Kununurra.
DPIRD farming systems innovation director David Ferris said the move to the 4G network provided an opportunity for the department to invest in lasting, high-grade equipment.
“The locally made Unidata CatM-1 technology is a form of Low Power Wide Area Network technology, known as LPWN, which provides superior coverage and increased speeds for Internet of Things, or IoT, devices and applications,” Mr Ferris said.
“This investment will ensure regional businesses and residents throughout the State have a high quality service they can rely on for years to come.”
DPIRD’s first weather station was installed at Jerramungup in 1982, as part of a research project, which has now grown to a network of 192 stations from Kununurra to east of Esperance.
The weather data, available for free via the department’s website, includes air temperature, humidity, rainfall, wind speed and direction, with most stations also measuring incoming solar radiation to calculate evaporation.
DPIRD’s weather webpages attract around 20,000 visitors per month, including farmers and pastoralists who rely on the information to guide critical day-to-day decisions.
Ag-tech companies also use the weather data via the department’s Application Programming Interface (API), which receives about six million data requests each month.
Mr Ferris said DPIRD was committed to continuous improvement to help industry, government and the community across WA access vital weather data to boost business productivity and profitability, as well as essential services.
“Summer provides a salient reminder of how important weather data is to regional communities, guiding harvest and livestock management, as well as responses to fires, storms and flooding,” he said.
“We’ve had great feedback from landholders and communities that have integrated weather data into their operations, which we use to refine the service to ensure it adapts to the needs of users.”
DPIRD released a new iOS version of its Weather Stations app late last year and the new Android version will be available mid-2024.
The DPIRD’s weather data can be accessed for free online at https://weather.agric.wa.gov.au or via the DPIRD Weather Stations app.
