DPIRD's network of automatic weather stations throughout the state provide timely, relevant and local weather data to assist growers and regional communities make more informed decisions. This data includes air temperature, humidity, rainfall, wind speed and direction, with most stations also measuring incoming solar radiation to calculate evaporation.

The weather stations report to DPIRD’s website every 10 minutes and provide near real time data. Local weather, such as rainfall or frost, can vary widely over short distances. The weather stations are sited to provide good geographical coverage. Their data is sent to the Bureau of Meteorology for use in weather forecasting and climate studies.

Industry uses this data for time critical agribusiness decision-making. These can range from scheduling irrigation of vegetable crops, through to choosing the right conditions for spraying operations in broad scale crops. DPIRD weather data is available to developers of decision support tools or weather applications via our Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).