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  • <div>Severe wind from tropical cyclones (TC) can cause significant damage to property and infrastructure, and accurately predicting these impacts is essential for ensuring community safety. At Geoscience Australia (GA), the Tropical Cyclone Risk Model (TCRM) is a statistical-parametric tool designed to estimate the severe wind hazards posed by TCs.</div><div><br></div><div>To assess the performance of TCRM, all TCs impacting Australia from 1998 to 2023 were simulated using various wind profile settings. Since TCRM currently lacks adjustments for local landscape effects on wind speed (e.g., topographic enhancements or variations due to vegetation or built environments), GA’s wind multiplier was applied to convert TCRM’s regional wind to local wind for each TC. Additionally, a new multiplier, derived from the Parallelized Large-Eddy Simulation Model (PALM), was used to calculate local wind. The local winds from these two multipliers were then compared and validated against 1-minute Automatic Weather Station (AWS) observations from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). </div><div><br></div><div>The results indicate that the Willoughby wind profile outperforms other wind profiles, with a mean sea level pressure error of just 0.2 hPa compared to AWS observations over the mainland. Although the local wind from both multipliers aligns closely across 82 AWS stations (a mean peak wind gust error of -1 m/s for the GA multiplier and 0.2 m/s for the new multiplier), significant discrepancies may occur in regions with steep mountain ranges, urban areas with high-rise buildings, and other areas with complex topography.</div><div><br></div>

  • To provide the solar power industry with a data resource to allow them to assess the economic potential of a site for a solar power plant. Specifically under the Solar Flagship program.

  • Severe TC Vance was one of the most intense cyclones to impact mainland Australia. The observed damage to buildings could be explained in terms of structural performance of those buildings. Combining the structural vulnerability of housing with an estimate of the maximum wind gusts, we can explore the possible impacts that a repeat of Vance would cause in Exmouth, and compare the outcomes with what occurred in 1999. The analysis of the impacts of TC Vance on present-day Exmouth shows that very few houses would be completely destroyed. Not surprisingly, older houses (pre-1980’s construction era, excluding the US Navy block houses) would dominate those destroyed, and most likely the timber-framed style houses, many of which were substantially damaged in TC Vance. Published in the Australian Journal of Emergency Management July 2019 edition

  • Hourly direct normal solar exposure is the total amount of direct beam solar energy falling over one hour on a surface whose orientation is maintained perpendicular to the solar beam. Typical values for hourly direct normal exposure range up to around 3 MJ/m2 (megajoules per square metre). The values are usually highest in clear skies and decrease rapidly with increasing cloudiness, and also decrease to a lesser extent with increasing haziness and decreasing solar elevation. Global solar exposure is the total amount of solar energy falling on a horizontal surface. The daily global solar exposure is the total solar energy for a day. Typical values for daily global exposure range from 1 to 35 MJ/m2 (megajoules per square metre). For mid-latitudes, the values are usually highest in clear sun conditions during the summer and lowest during the winter or very cloudy days. See LINEAGE below for more information.

  • The Tropical Cyclone Scenario Selector Tool (TC SST) provides an interactive application to interrogate the stochastic event catalogue which underpins the 2018 Tropical Cyclone Hazard Assessment (TCHA18). The application allows users to search for TC events in the catalogue based on location and intensity (either TC intensity category, or maximum wind speed), visualise the tracks and the wind fields of those events, and download the data for further analysis.

  • Included fields: Record identifier - hm Bureau of Meteorology Station Number. Year Month Day Hours Minutes in YYYY,MM,DD,HH24,MI format in Local time Year Month Day Hours Minutes in YYYY,MM,DD,HH24,MI format in Local standard time Air Temperature in degrees C Quality of Air Temperature Wet bulb temperature in degrees C Quality of Wet Bulb Temperature Dew point temperature in degrees C Quality of Dew point Temperature Relative humidity in percentage % Quality of Relative humidity Wind speed in km/h Quality of Wind speed Wind direction in degrees Quality of Wind direction Speed of maximum wind gust in last 10 minutes in km/h Quality of speed of maximum wind gust in last 10 minutes Automatic Weather Station Flag

  • Global solar exposure is the total amount of solar energy falling on a horizontal surface. The daily global solar exposure is the total solar energy for a day. Typical values for daily global exposure range from 1 to 35 MJ/m2 (megajoules per square metre). For mid-latitudes, the values are usually highest in clear sun conditions during the summer, and lowest during winter or very cloudy days. The monthly means are derived from the daily global solar exposure. See metadata statement for more information.

  • The Severe Wind Hazard Assessment for Queensland - SWHA(Q), is a collaborative project between Geoscience Australia (GA) and Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) which aims to provide realistic and tangible information on the potential physical impacts of tropical cyclones on Queensland communities. This is intended to enable the emergency management sector and Local Governments to more effectively engage with the community on the current and future risks posed by cyclones and inform long term strategic risk management strategies.

  • Included fields: Bureau of Meteorology Station Number. Year month day in YYYY,MM,DD format. Present weather at (00, 03, 06, 09, 12, 15, 18, 21) hours Local Time, as international code. Quality of present weather at (00, 03, 06, 09, 12, 15, 18, 21) hours Local Time. Past weather at (00, 03, 06, 09, 12, 15, 18, 21) hours Local Time, as international code. Quality of past weather at (00, 03, 06, 09, 12, 15, 18, 21) hours Local Time.