Charters Towers rainfall totals missing from BoM website

Charters Towers Airport weather station has not reported any rainfall totals since November 30, due to staffing issues.

A Bureau of Meteorology spokesperson said manual observations had ceased due to a volunteer observer stepping down.

"The Bureau is actively working with the Charters Towers Regional Council to fill the position and continue observations at this site," the spokesperson said.

Charters Towers Regional Council said missing weather data was a concern.

"In a rural town, composed highly of agricultural areas having current and accurate weather data is essential for the planning of agricultural, as well as infrastructure planning. Council appreciates that the Bureau of Meteorology are acting to rectify this issue," a council spokesperson said.

"Council was hopeful that the position would be filled heading into the wet season. There has already been several major weather events across the state. Council is hopeful that this issue will be rectified in a timely manner to avoid any significant data going unobserved."

Leading into the monsoon season, the BoM said forecasts and warnings for the area would not be impacted by the issue.

"The Bureau's weather forecasts and weather warning service has been designed so that it is resilient and not dependent on any one piece of equipment. Rain gauges form only one part of the Bureau's observing network," a Bom spokesperson said.

"Forecasts and warnings for all regions are based on a combination of many different observing systems including satellites, automatic weather stations, radars, rain gauges, and hydrological monitoring stations.

"The composite nature of these systems allows specialist staff to monitor approaching weather and issue forecasts and warnings."

The job advertisement stated the manual weather station was due to be upgraded to an automatic one, which is predicted to take two years to complete.