Geraldton to Pinnacles

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We went on a tour of the Bureau of Meteorology at Geraldton. This was out at the airport. We looked at the old instruments and the new ones. We got to see the ground thermometers, one of which is a metre under the ground. It measures soil temperature and the findings are used by the local farmers as to when they should plant their crops.

They set off a weather balloon. We watched it get blown up with helium so it would float high up into the sky. It had a silver thing on the bottom which the radar at the station picks up the readings of temperature, wind direction, and moisture content. Inside we saw the readings coming up on the computer. We saw which way it was going. First it went sort of straight, and then it went left. The wind had changed direction high up in the sky.

We saw an Evaporation Detector. It is metal with a thermometer in the middle. It can float because it has an air pocket at each end.

We drove down the coast through Jurien Bay, Dongara and Port Denison. They were nice beaches, but in the end, just beaches.

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Photos

Bureau of Meteorology
Ground Thermometers

Bureau of Meteorology
Evaporation Detector - Metal Floats

Bureau of Meteorology
Weather Balloon on its way up