Friday, July 5, 2002
By PAULA THOMPSON
After 113 years of recording the weather details for Renmark, the weather station at the Renmark Post Office will no longer be functioning due to a cut in funding.
An automated device situated at the Renmark Airport, which transmits hourly reports to the Bureau of Met-eorology, will now be used in place of the traditional Post Office service.
The automated weather station was installed at the airport in June, 1995.
The Bureau of Meteorology conceded last week that there were climatic differences between the airport site and recordings taken at the rear of the post office.
It said that growers concerned about frost likelihood should take into account that the dewpoint temperature at the airport is, on average, 1.3 degrees lower than at the post office site.
The mean monthly maximum temperatures are approximately 1 degree higher at the airport in the summer, but are roughly the same in winter.
But, minimum temperatures are, on average, 2 degrees lower at the airport than at the post office during winter. Differences of up to 6 degrees have been recorded at the two sites.
A spokesman for the Bureau of Meteorology said that while it had an historic co-operation around the country with regional post offices for the recording of weather this co-operation was being phased out.
"Around the country the circumstances have changed in the last few years with available funding being reduced, so we now have fewer options," he said.
The Renmark Post Office had been the official rainfall observation site for the area since 1889 and temperatures have been measured there since 1957.
Observations at the site ceased on Sunday.
The only way to find out the previous day's weather is through an internet site which lists the automatic service's findings, but this is only listed for the past 72 hours.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
By CRAIG TRELOAR
The Riverland has been experiencing below minimum average temperatures throughout May with one town recording its coldest May night ever.
Climate Services manager Elizabeth Curran said Renmark recorded its coldest night ever at -4.1 degrees on Wednesday, May 24.
"A temperature of -3.2 degrees was recorded at Loxton on Wednesday and Thursday last week but that was not the lowest we have had recorded at Loxton," she said.
"As it turns out the lowest ever recorded in Loxton is also -4.1 degrees and that was in 1973."
Although weather records have been kept at Renmark since 1889 the new record minimum temperature was recorded at a different site than previous temperatures.
"The old weather site at Renmark was at the post office and that was open until 1985," Mrs Curran said.
"The coldest temperature there was only 0.2 degrees, it would never register below 0 but it would have been more protected than the air port which is where the weather station is now," she said.
"The Loxton site has also shifted but that was only about one kilometre."
The previous lowest temperature at Renmark was -3.5 degrees recorded in 2004. The mean minimum temperature for May in that year was 3.6 degrees, which is much colder than this year.
"At the moment we are running at a mean minimum temperature of 5.4 degrees at Renmark this year and the average is 6.2 so the minimum temperature this year is below average," Mrs Curran said.
 The Murray Pioneer website
Weather station page
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