Before checking the weather here is a peek into how thousands of Australian families help the Bureau of Meteorology collect some of its data. One Tasmanian family has been checking their property’s rain gauge everyday for more than a century.
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00:00Every day, for more than 100 years, rainfall records have come from this property in Richmond.
00:10Brookbank has been a volunteer observation site for the Bureau of Meteorology since 1915.
00:16Lately, it's been the job of Richie Nicholls, who ventures out at 9 o'clock every morning
00:21to check the gauge.
00:24So we go out and measure the rainfall, we've got a gauge and then we record that in a book
00:31and then we enter those into a BOM website.
00:34Mr Nicholls today accepting an award at Government House for his family's efforts over several
00:40generations.
00:41So it means a lot because of all the recognition, not from myself but all those who preceded
00:46me and kept the rainfall records because it's very important in terms of collecting climate
00:51data and how that affects the agricultural production in the valley.
00:55Brookbank was originally a wool property.
00:58It's now a shared farm full of market gardens.
01:01Mr Nicholls is one of more than 4,600 volunteers across Australia who take daily rainfall records,
01:09helping the Bureau keep accurate data and track water resources.
01:13It's really important to help understand rainfall across the country.
01:16So firstly we want to understand the totals over long periods of time and so every point
01:20across the country helps us make a good interpolated data set across the country.
01:24But it's really important for understanding the country's water resources as well.
01:29The Richmond area is considered to be semi-arid and Mr Nicholls has seen some pretty dry years.
01:35Last year was the second driest year on record in terms of Brookbank, which was about 320
01:42millimetres.
01:43Vital data and a family legacy.