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Weather Data Services

Files for automated data services

The Bureau of Meteorology makes a number of real-time forecast, warning and observation products and analysis charts available freely via the web and FTP. Each file has a date-time stamp indicating when the data file was created.

When users access these products anonymously, the Bureau cannot track the usage of any particular product. Thus it is unable to directly contact users affected by service changes. Users requiring support and service continuity should make use of the Bureau's Registered User Services.

Unless otherwise stated, products available via this service are subject to the default terms of use in the Bureau's Copyright Notice.

Anonymous FTP data is available via: ftp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon/gen/.

Please note:

The Bureau does not guarantee the availability of information on the FTP site.
Please read how to access the Bureau's FTP site and its structure.
Use of data should be in accordance with the copyright notice and disclaimer.

Full product listing

View the full list of all products available via anonymous FTP.

Short form (précis) forecasts

Précis forecasts (a short summary, less than 30 characters) are available in XML format for all Australian forecast locations.

Long form forecasts

Town forecasts are available for major centres and include a longer text forecast out to seven days. For precipitation information, refer to the précis forecast for the same location.

City forecasts are available for major metropolitan centres and tourist locations. Note that the 'forecast' text in these products refers to the broader metropolitan area.

XML files include additional information about rainfall amounts, chance of rainfall, and an icon code. The icon code provides a convenient mechanism to match a weather graphic against the forecast for each day.

The XML files also use a unique identifier for each location. This is referred to as the AAC identifier. For a listing of the location metadata (name, position coordinates) to match against the AAC identifier, please refer to the spatial data guide.

Schema information is included at the top of all XML messages.

	Precis	Town	City
New South Wales / Australian Capital Territory	XML	XML	XML
Northern Territory	XML	XML	XML
Queensland	XML	XML	XML
South Australia	XML	XML	XML
Tasmania	XML	XML	XML
Victoria	XML	XML	XML
Western Australia	XML	XML	XML

District forecasts

XML forecasts are also available for broader land districts.

	Land districts
New South Wales / Australian Capital Territory	XML
Northern Territory	N/A
Queensland	XML
South Australia	XML
Tasmania	XML
Victoria	XML
Western Australia	XML

Coastal waters forecasts

Forecasts for coastal waters zones are also available in XML format.

	Coastal waters
New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory	XML
Northern Territory	XML
Queensland	XML
South Australia	XML
Tasmania	XML
Victoria	XML
Western Australia	XML

Warnings

Users can have weather warnings emailed direct via the Bureau's RSS feeds.

Warnings available via FTP are listed in the anonymous FTP product listing. Most warning products are available in XML or CAP formats.

XML and AMOC format information

Observations - State/Territory summaries

In addition to the above html summaries, State-based summaries are also available in xml format.

Observations - individual stations

The Bureau provides its observational data in a number of formats for use as a data feed.

72 hour station based observational products are available in html, axf and json formats.

To get the URL of a data feed for a weather station:

Click on a product link below;
Click on the link to the relevant weather station;
Click on, or scroll down to, Other Formats;
Select the link to the format that suits your needs.

	Coastal Waters	All Observations	Capital City Area
Australian Capital Territory	N/A	N/A	Canberra area
New South Wales	New South Wales	New South Wales	Sydney area
Northern Territory	Northern Territory	Northern Territory	Darwin area
Queensland	Queensland	Queensland	Brisbane area
South Australia	South Australia	South Australia	Adelaide area
Tasmania	Tasmania	Tasmania	Hobart area
Victoria	Victoria	Victoria	Melbourne area
Western Australia	Western Australia	Western Australia	Perth area
Antarctic area	N/A	Antarctica	N/A

Agricultural bulletins

Agricultural bulletins containing a summary of agricultural type observations on a daily time scale are available in xml for each State/Territory.

Radar

Radar images include a timestamp in the file name and are issued at either six- or ten-minute frequency. Refer to the product listing to find relevant radars.

Static radar transparencies and overlays are available in a separate directory.

Satellite

Satellite images from the Himawari-8 satellite are available at ten minute update frequency in JPG and GeoTIFF formats. File names include timestamps for these images.