Gauge-corrected radar rainfall estimations for Australian weather events. We combine raw BoM weather radar with available rain gauges to estimate rainfall at the location, area, time, and resolution you need — for flood and inundation modelling, stormwater and design-storm analysis, catchment yield work, insurance and post-event reconstruction, or anywhere else a defensible rainfall input matters.
Rain gauges are accurate but sparse. Weather radar is spatially dense, but doesn't measure rain volume directly or precisely, and the relationship to the rain that reaches the ground is complex. We combine the two: take the radar's spatial detail, anchor it against the real readings from available nearby rain gauges, and produce rainfall estimates for nominated points or catchments.
The result is usually more useful than relying on a single gauge that might be kilometres from the location you care about, and more defensible than trying to estimate rainfall directly from radar reflectivity alone.
Every project produces a tailored bundle of outputs. You pick the ones that suit your workflow.
Per-minute, 5-minute, 15-minute, 30-minute, or hourly at any points you nominate. Drops straight into Excel, R, Python, or your custom tool of choice.
Upload a catchment or subcatchment GIS polygon and we return the area-averaged rainfall for each, weighted by the fraction of each radar cell that lies inside.
Static accumulated-rainfall grids and vector isohyet contour lines for the event. These give a quick visualisation of the event across your catchment and the underlying values live in the provided NetCDF grids which you can load into QGIS, TUFLOW etc.
Per-timestep rainfall on a regular grid, ready to load into GIS or hydraulic modelling tools (QGIS, ArcGIS, TUFLOW etc.).
A ready-to-open QGIS project with the time series NetCDF and original radar imagery configured for immediate review and further analysis.
The same web view as our public sample: animated radar, accumulated map, per-point graphs, and one-click CSV / NetCDF / QGIS downloads. This is an unlisted URL so you can share it with others in your team and clients as appropriate.
We pull the available raw radar data for the event, collect nearby observations (BoM AWS, Water Data Online, river-rain gauges, DPIRD), then use those gauges to optimise the conversion of radar reflectivity to rainfall and validate the output. The result is a gauge-corrected rainfall estimate for your area of interest where the available data supports it.
A two-day rainfall event over Canberra's inner north that put Sullivans Creek over its banks. The project gauges the event against available BoM and ACT Government rain gauges in range, returns time-series for the catchment, and produces accumulated maps plus per-interval grids ready for hydraulic modelling.
Anywhere within range of an Australian BoM weather radar, subject to data availability for the event. Tell us the location and we'll let you know what the radar and gauge picture looks like for that area.
Mostly hydrologists, civil and water-resources engineers, and consulting flood modellers - the people who need a stronger rainfall input for design, modelling, or asset decisions. Insurers and emergency-management groups also use it for post-event reconstruction.
It's still an estimate - measuring rainfall always is - but we use the available radar and gauge data to make that estimate as defensible as possible. Every project is bias-corrected against available gauges, optimised end-to-end, and validated. The same workflow can handle last week's storm or older events where the necessary data is available.
The main things are the dates and location. From there we can suggest the radar, the appropriate output cadence, and the right boundary to estimate over. If you have specific points or GIS polygons, send them to help confirm the area. If you're not sure what you need, that's fine too - describe what you're trying to answer and we'll be in touch.
Scope an event before commissioning a full estimation. The Rainfall Extractor queries available rainfall observations across Australia for a selected date range and area, plots gauges on a map with downloadable CSV/ZIP/GeoJSON, and saves your search so you can come back to it. It's part of our Labs programme (opt-in for Pro and Personal subscribers), and there's a public sample loaded with the same Sullivans Creek event as our sample estimation project so you can see exactly what it looks like before signing up.
It depends on the radar, location, and event. Some areas have data going back decades; others have a shorter or patchier record. Send the location and rough date and we'll confirm what's available.
Output is typically generated at 1, 5, 10, 15, 30 or 60-minute intervals depending on your requirements while our primary analysis interval is typically 10, 15 or 30 minutes.
Available BoM AWS rainfall, BoM Water Data Online rain gauges, river-rain network gauges from a range of state agencies, and DPIRD in Western Australia. If you have your own gauge data we're happy to ingest it.
Yes. Send us a location and we'll work back through the radar + observation record to surface candidate events worth running an estimation for. Useful when you're interested in an area but don't have a specific date pinned down — common for retrospective insurance and asset-damage work, or when scoping a new project area. There's a "Help me find an event" tick-box on the quote form to make this easy.
Within two weeks of confirmation of all details, but typically shorter for events in the order of a few days and covering an area in the order of tens or low hundreds of square kilometres. Send the dates and area and we'll come back with a timeframe.
Send the event window and the location or catchment, and any other details you can.
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