General News
26 September, 2025
Council buys time to save Automatic Weather Station
There may yet be a glimmer of hope for the Warracknabeal Automatic Weather Station, with many locals alarmed by the announcement last week from the Yarriambiack Shire Council of its impending closure at the end of October and voicing their concerns.
The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a statement claiming that its overall data-gathering and forecasting system remains capable of meeting local requirements.
However, farmers and emergency services personnel believe that a local AWS should be considered a critical part of rural infrastructure.
The council stated that rising maintenance costs from the BoM would force the AWS at the aerodrome to be turned off, but they were hopeful that something could be done within the remaining time since the last service.
A BoM spokesperson confirmed that “the council has decided not to enter into another maintenance agreement with the Bureau” and stated that their network would be able to adapt to the loss of the data.
“The Bureau cannot maintain third-party-owned AWS, such as the council-owned instrument in Warracknabeal,” the spokesperson said.
“The Bureau’s weather forecast and weather warning service has been designed so that it is resilient and not dependent on any one piece of equipment.”
The BoM stated that there were sufficient stations in the nearby region to compensate for the loss of the Warracknabeal AWS.
“AWS typically collect and process real-time weather observations such as temperature, rainfall and wind, and they only form only one part of the Bureau’s observing network,” the spokesperson said.
Chief executive, Tammy Smith, confirmed that the council has informed the BoM it was not its preference to continue funding the maintenance of the weather station, as these “were generally operated by the BoM across Australia, who pay the servicing and maintenance costs”.
The fee was set to increase significantly under a new three-year agreement – from $12,700 to $27,959 in the first year, and approaching $30,000 within three years – despite the servicing interval being reduced to one visit per year.
Ms Smith said there was thankfully a window of opportunity to find a solution.
“Given the AWS requires only annual servicing, the unit should remain operational for at least six months following its August 2025 service,” she said.
“Initially, the BoM indicated that the weather station would be decommissioned in October 2025; however, recent correspondence suggests this date may be extended beyond October.”
She said a recommendation regarding the future of the AWS will now be presented to Councillors at the October Council meeting.
In the meantime, residents have been alarmed by the potential loss of the service (see letters page), including local farmer, Paul Johns, who stressed the importance of having an AWS nearby.
He said the BoM needed to reexamine its role – to help people make decisions on weather forecasts, and nowhere was this more important than for farming.
“How about you cut the cost down in Melbourne for people walking to work, where it doesn't really cost them anything if they make a weather decision,” Mr Johns said.
“You'd be better off to support these ones out in the country.”
With his properties north-west of Warracknabeal growing a range of crops including wheat, barley, canola, lentils and oats, he said it was sometimes “very, very good to look up historical data”, especially with operations such as spraying.
“You may have some issues, you've got to keep pretty good records and what day you've spayed and which way the wind was going, and rainfall and maybe temperature, frost and that sort of stuff,” Mr Johns said.
“If you were talking to another farmer about (how) you've got a dilemma with some spray drift (and) you need to look up some historical data to see which way the wind was blowing on a certain day, (and if) you’ve got to work off the Horsham (AWS) instead of the Warracknabeal one, that could cost somebody quite a substantial amount of money.”
Mr Johns said the regions actually need more AWS locations, not less.
“I think they need to have 10 times more around the place to actually make a more critical opinion on what's going on,” Mr Johns said.
He said the local AWS was “probably not enough, but I'm not going to complain about it not being enough,” and he’d rather preserve the existing infrastructure given the cost of set-up, but conceded.
“I can't really blame the Council for not buying that sort of an increase," he said.
Wearing his other hat as captain of the Crymelon CFA brigade, he was asked if the potential closure had any ramifications for emergency services as well.
“Absolutely yes, definitely,” Mr Johns said.
“It's very good to have more information rather than less information.”
Warracknabeal SES unit controller Mick Evans echoed the sentiment, pointing out, “All the apps that you use on your phone for us to assist in the weather scenarios for incidents comes through that weather station.”
“For storm assistance in reading what's coming, we use the radar information plus the weather station,” he said.
In the BoM statement, the spokesperson listed several alternative ways to receive weather data and information in the Warracknabeal area:
– Longerenong AWS: about 40 km to the south.
– Horsham Aerodrome AWS: about 45 km to the southwest.
– Nhill Aerodrome AWS: about 69km to the west.
– Charlton AWS: about 82km to the east.
– Hopetoun Airport AWS: about 67km to the north.
The BoM also pointed out that the Rainbow radar is about 50km north-west of Warracknabeal and will continue to provide coverage of the area.
“The Warracknabeal AWS is currently used in global weather models, but its removal will mean that station density in the area still meets minimum World Meteorological Organisation requirements for global weather models," the spokesperson said.