Tennant Creek Gets Weather Radar After 11-Year Wait

After 11 years without weather forecasting equipment, Tennant Creek is getting a brand new radar that's better than the original.

The Bureau of Meteorology announced it will install a high-powered radar at Tennant Creek Airport, replacing equipment controversially shut down in 2015. The Northern Territory town, about 1,000 kilometers south of Darwin, has been flying blind through cyclones, floods, and fires ever since.

The timing couldn't be more important. In February, massive flooding devastated cattle stations across the Barkly region. Roads remain closed, and pastoralists say a working radar might have helped them prepare better.

"I feel like we have wasted so much time," said Amber Driver, who lives at Elkedra Station, 210 kilometers southeast of Tennant Creek. Her property was dramatically impacted by the February floods that caught the region off guard.

The new radar will serve Tennant Creek's residents plus remote Aboriginal communities and cattle stations across the vast region. It will detect weather up to 300 kilometers away, covering a massive gap between Darwin and Alice Springs.

The Bright Side

Good news: the radar is already built and ready to install. Once site work finishes, testing begins, with the system expected to go live by mid-2027.

The new equipment is a serious upgrade. It's a high-power S-band dual-polarized Doppler radar that measures both wind and rain with much better range and accuracy than the 2015 model.

BOM Chief Executive Stuart Minchin said technological improvements made the project possible. New tower technology allows them to build taller at the airport site, which has power and infrastructure already in place.

The delay involved some bureaucratic stumbles. BOM originally wanted to build at One Tank Hill west of town, but incorrect coordinates created "administrative challenges." After years of setbacks, including COVID delays, they settled on returning to the original airport location.

Driver said the announcement was "about bloody time" but welcomed the progress. "This technology is a critical piece of infrastructure for our community," she said.

The Northern Territory and Commonwealth governments are jointly funding the project, bringing essential safety infrastructure back to one of Australia's most remote regions.