Hi all.
I have searched and not found the info on the following details: on my local weather page the location for Wangaratta weather is given as 36.35 degrees S 146.32 degrees E.
At the bottom of the 24 hour graph page, the station details gives the location as 36.4206 degrees S 146.3056 degrees E. These two locations are approximately 7 Km apart. Can anyone tell me why would this be? As I said at the start, so far I have been unable to find any reference to this in the forums. If the answer is buried somewhere, could someone direct me to the answer.

Thanks.

Jim

Hi Jim,

The coordinates on the Wangaratta local weather page are for Wangaratta itself and the coordinates on the observations page are those of the actual weather station in question - in this case the AWS at the airport.

Don't know where WZ gets its info from but the second set of coordinates is correct for the station (which is at the airport). The first set looks about right for the town centre.

The weather station coordinates come from the BoM station list.

Thanks for the quick response Andrew.
I presume then that the location in Wangaratta itself is for no particular site, just a random address.
Is that correct?

Jim

Yes. The local weather page is based on localities and the coordinates at the top of the page are for something approximating the centre of town (often the GPO). It draws data from [potentially different] weather stations together for the different sections based on their proximity to the locality of interest.

The page locates the closest (a) weather station with automatic observations, (b) location with a 3-hourly forecast, (c) location with a 7-day forecast, (d) weather station with daily observations and (e) weather station with both (d) plus climatology. These are for the current conditions, 12-hour forecast, 7-day forecast, past 5 days and almanac panels respectively. Each of stations may be quite different depending on the town - see Harrietville for an example, and hover over the underlined location names to see how the weather station relates to the locality (e.g. [Omeo is] 53km ESE of Harrietville and 189m higher).

When you click off to a page which pertains to a specific weather station (e.g. 24-hour graph, this month, full climatology) you see the details of the actual station in question.

Thank you Andrew for that excellent explanation.
All is now understood.

Jim