This project is a collaboration between researchers at The University of Queensland (UQ), the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) and the Queensland Farmers’ Federation (QFF).
Further support to the project will come from the Queensland Fire Department (QFD), local farmers in the region and Suncorp Insurance. This project is funded through the Queensland Resilience and Risk Reduction Fund (QRRRF), run by the Queensland Reconstruction Authority (QRA).
Project background
Hailstorms regularly cause loss and damage to buildings, infrastructure, crops and communities throughout Queensland. Buildings, vehicles, and infrastructure are vulnerable to damage from large hail. Crops, on the other hand, depending on their stage of growth, can be vulnerable to damage from even small hailstones.
The disruption to Queensland communities when hailstorms occur is considerable. As an example, the Insurance Council of Australia list three Queensland hailstorms in the top twenty most costly disasters to have occurred across Australia since 1967, each with a normalised insurance loss greater than $2 Billion .
The requirements for emergency services to respond to these events is also considerable, with the 2014 hailstorm in Brisbane resulting in 2,500 requests for assistance and the 2020 “Halloween” Hailstorm leading to more than 2,000. The latter of these events also led to more than $60 Million damage to crops across Southeast Queensland and disrupted food supply within the region .
Unlike other meteorological hazards, e.g., wind and rainfall, hail is not systematically measured by the Bureau of Meteorology. This means that there are currently no hail monitoring systems in Queensland (or Australia) that provide publicly accessible information about measured hail during severe thunderstorms. Because of this, the risk hail poses to different parts of Queensland is difficult to quantify and is therefore problematic to manage.
Aims and Benefits
The primary aims of this project are:
- Develop and implement a network of ten hail and wind monitoring stations (HailNet) throughout the highly hail-prone regions of southeast Queensland and the Darling Downs.
- Develop a web portal for real-time access to hail and wind data measured by HailNet.
- Create a public archive of hail and wind data captured throughout the life of HailNet.
- Educate interested residents, farmers, disaster managers, industry and insurers about the data being collected and its potential applications.
The network of HailNet weather stations will be deployed and monitoring for hail and strong wind events for the period 2025 – 2032.
Following storms where we measure large hail or strong wind gusts we will undertake damage assessment work in the general vicinity of the weather stations so we can better understand the impact they have on buildings and crops.
Collection of hail, wind gust and impact information will enable the project team and its partners to:
- Improve severe storm forecasting capabilities through better calibration with ground-based observations.
- Better understand the range of hail sizes that occur during severe storms so we can better design resilient building materials to resist their impacts
- Understand the relationship between hail, wind and crop damage so farmers can better manage the risk these storms pose, including through the use of novel insurance products.
References:
The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) - Data hub
ABC News - Queensland farmers count cost of hailstorms as insurance claims pour in