The deployment of mobile towers ahead of Cyclone Jasper in north Queensland in December 2023 allowed for real-time data collection for the project Streamlining SWIRLnet data acquisition, analysis, storage and dissemination procedures.
The SWIRLnet (Surface Weather Relay and Logging Network) team used improved data flow and automated analysis to deploy five weather stations in north Queensland communities expected to be impacted by Cyclone Jasper. The project was funded by Natural Hazards Research Australia and is a collaboration between the University of Queensland and James Cook University’s Cyclone Testing Station. The real-time, and eventually archived, data feed was available for viewing and downloading during the storm’s landfall to streamline data acquisition and dissemination so that data is more accessible.
Tropical cyclones are one of Australia’s most costly natural hazards. It is important that accurate measures of their characteristics are recorded to better prepare buildings, infrastructure, communities, and disaster management organisations.
Current procedures are overly manual, so the automation of this process ensures the capture and dissemination of real-time data during tropical cyclone events is more robust, reliable and timely.
Find out more about the project and replay the project team’s Hazardous Webinar.
“We want to understand the impacts on property damage and insurance losses, so it is really valuable for us to have those observations in and among the community to understand what the wind speeds actually were at those particular occasions and use it to validate it against the simulated data that we rely on for our overall loss estimates.”
Francesca Kirby - Pricing Manager, Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation