The Weather Stations - Sydney

So where does the data come from? What weather stations do I use and why?

As mentioned previously I hail from the city of Sydney, Australia. Sydney is a rather large city in terms of land area so there are several official weather stations throughout the region. These, along with all other weather stations in Australia, are run by the Australian Government's Bureau of Meteorology. Media outlets generally take information recorded by the weather station Sydney - Observatory Hill. However, for the purpose of my data I have always followed the recordings made by the weather station Sydney Airport. The main reason for this is that I do not live in the city and, living close to the airport, I've noticed that the observations taken at the airport are more indicative of those I experience myself.

The airport and observatory stations are approximately 10km apart. Observatory Hill is located quite close to the city centre at the southern end of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Sydney Airport station is located on the western side of the Airport Tunnel, near the old airport observation tower. You can see the stations on the map below, with Observatory Hill the green marker in the north and Sydney Airport the marker in the south.

So we have different locations. Maybe you're wondering how different the observations might be? Well generally they are quite similar, as might be expected, but different weather conditions can be experienced at each location. Sydney Airport lies in a vulnerable position in the open with fewer natural and unnatural objects surrounding it compared to Observatory Hill. It could be said the station really experiences true weather.

Wind gusts tend to be stronger and temperatures tend to be higher with a northerly wind, but cooler with a southerly wind, in comparison to Observatory Hill. I've noticed that the Airport usually has higher average maximums than Observatory Hill, but lower minimums. Even if you look at the first 4 days of September averages at the Airport range from 12.1C to 23.9C whereas Observatory Hill ranges from 12.0C to 21.8C. Of course this is a small sample, but records show this is rather common.

In terms of all time records, Sydney Airport's records are also more extreme than Observatory Hill with a current all time record minimum of -0.1C and a maximum of 46.4C compared with 2.1C and 45.8C.