BARRA Reanalysis for Downburst Thunderstorm Conditions Over Tasmania, 1990-2019

An honours project analyzed meteorological conditions suitable for downburst thunderstorms over Tasmania from 1990 to 2019. It utilized the Bureau of Meteorology's high-resolution BARRA reanalysis dataset, which offers over 100 atmospheric variables. The data features hourly temporal resolution, 70 vertical levels, and 1.5 km horizontal resolution specifically developed for Tasmania.

Use Cases

• Identify historical downburst thunderstorm events based on records from the Severe Storms Archive.
• Analyze atmospheric conditions preceding severe weather events using over 100 model variables.
• Calculate the probability of meteorological conditions suitable for downbursts using high-resolution reanalysis data.
• Compare storm environment analysis capabilities of regional reanalyses versus larger-scale global products.

Strengths

• Uses the BARRA reanalysis dataset with over 100 atmospheric model variables.
• Features high-resolution data: hourly temporal, 70 vertical levels, and 1.5 km horizontal resolution.
• Covers a 30-year time period from 1990 to 2019 for longitudinal analysis.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to data_gov_au, being focused on Tasmania.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Analysis using the Bureau of Meteorology Atmospheric high-resolution Regional Reanalysis for Australia (BARRA) dataset.

Time Range

1990-2019

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-04 23:22:34.513483; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Tasmania, Australia