earth science

Weatherzone

Weatherzone is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Weatherzone rather than just read about it. In short: Weatherzone, known before 9 August 2010 as The Weather Company and still trading under this name, is the main provider of value-added meteorological services in Australia. Their main business lines are services to energy, utilities and mining companies.

Key takeaways

Weatherzone belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Weatherzone to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Weatherzone from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Weatherzone, known before 9 August 2010 as The Weather Company and still trading under this name, is the main provider of value-added meteorological services in Australia. Their main business lines are services to energy, utilities and mining companies. They also provide services to ports, insurance and large retail corporations. They specialize in aggregating content from a large range of private and government funded organisations (e.g. Bureau of Meteorology, Environmental Protection Authority, World Meteorological Organisation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation etc.). Weatherzone is the major commercial weather company that provides meteorological services in Australia.

History Weatherzone was founded in 1998 by former Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) meteorologist, Mark Hardy, providing graphics, scripts and weather briefings for television weather presentations. In 2008 in response to an increasing demand from industry for more accurate and more frequently updating weather forecasts, Weatherzone developed the Opticast forecast system. This system takes information from over a dozen computer models including variants of the in-house operated Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The Opticast algorithms are run every hour ensuring the forecasts are continually staying abreast of rapid and previously unforeseen meteorological changes. The accuracy of Opticast allowed weatherzone to make a successful foray into the lucrative energy and mining weather forecasting markets. Over subsequent years, many of Australia's major electricity companies commenced using weatherzone's Opticast forecasting products including AGL, Snowy Hydro, Origin and AEMO. On 25 June 2008 Fairfax Media acquired a 75% share in Weatherzone (then known as The Weather Company) with 25% still owned by the founder, Mark Hardy who retained the Managing Director role. On 9 August 2010 The organisation changed its name from The Weather Company to Weatherzone. It still trades as The Weather Company Pty Ltd. Weatherzone was part of Fairfax's Digital Ventures group of companies and in September 2013 Charles Solomon was appointed Managing Director. In 2015 Weatherzone expanded into Africa with an investment in South Africa based AfricaWeather. Weatherzone also operates the largest total lightning detection network in Australia. On 1 October 2019 Fairfax's 75% stake in Weatherzone was acquired by US-based DTN for an undisclosed sum.

Services Weatherzone runs their own WRF computer model which is used to produce content for the subscription product, Weatherzone Pro (formerly Weatherzone Silver), and feeds into their Opticast forecasting model. It employs a team of meteorologists to offer a meteorological alternative to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). Weatherzone also provides services for displaying weather on websites. Some large sites that use this include Elders, an Australian agricultural site, News Corp Australia (formerly News Limited) and Fairfax Media. Advanced forecasts and alerting products are also produced for the energy, mining and insurance industries. Weatherzone publishes its own weather site and smartphone apps which combines their own content with Bureau of Meteorology information and that from several global providers into a user friendly and customizable interface. Weatherzone sources surf data from Swellnet, Australia's most popular source of online surf reports, surf forecasts and live surfcam vision. It provides these weather services, for among others, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and world weather reports for Bloomberg Television. Weatherzones Apple iOS app includes iPhone, iPad and WatchOS apps, enabling users to view 10-day forecasts, rain radar and BOM warnings at a glance. The iOS apps also include WeatherPulse, a daily video magazine. The app offers both a free ad funded version and a paid for subscription.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Weatherzone

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Weatherzone claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Weatherzone before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Weatherzone ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Weatherzone

In research: Weatherzone appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Weatherzone in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Weatherzone is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Climate of Australia, Companies established in 1998, Meteorological companies, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Weatherzone outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Weatherzone in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Weatherzone means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Weatherzone out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Weatherzone in simple terms?

Why does Weatherzone matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Weatherzone?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Weatherzone.