The science behind our climate intelligence

An important aim for Climatics Intelligence was to ensure the methods and data that we used were transparent, replicable and reliable. This page will provide as much information as possible in non-scientific terms so all have access to climate intelligence.

Data inside of Climatics Intelligence reports can be divided into two categories; acute events and chronic events. Within Climatics Intelligence, we classify acute events as hazards that occur in a small space of time and cover local areas such as severe thunderstorms that produce hail, severe wind gusts, and tornadoes, bushfires, tropical cyclones, daily extreme rainfall, as well as daily extreme heat. Alternatively, chronic events are defined as hazards that take place over a longer period of time and can impact large areas of land, such as heatwaves, drought, and flooding. Other climate hazards are also included for users to get a feel of the bigger shifts that may be happening, including monthly and seasonal rainfall, bushfire risk and thunderstorm warnings.

All of the acute events utilised in the analysis of your property and creation of your report are derived from manually created event footprints that start as early as 1985 and are updated each fortnight as they happen. Hazards that are a derivative of temperature or rainfall utilise the Bureau of Meteorology’s Australian Gridded Climate Data (AGCD) archive.

Some more information on each hazard is provided in the below table. If you have further questions about how a metric was calculated, you can reach out to the Climatics Intelligence team via email at support@climatics.io or use the Contact Us form and we will do our best to provide the additional context.

Acute events

Event
Hail:	Classified as an event when hail falls from a severe thunderstorm and has been verified in size. The on-ground size classifications are grouped into 3-5cm, 6-8cm, and 9+cm. This dataset starts in 1985 and utilises EWN's proprietary spatial database. It should be noted that a population bias does exist in this dataset, particularly before 2005 when weather radar was more distributed - unfortunately if the thunderstorm was not remotely observed or no one was there to report it then there is no way for the event to be recorded and mapped.
Severe Wind:	This hazard is only taking into account the severe wind gusts that were produced by convective thunderstorm, and not generated by synoptic winds or tropical cyclones. Generally these events are observed via remote sensing with doppler velocity from weather radar, ground based weather stations or verified via photos from storm damage. The hazard is categorised into two categories; damaging winds that are between 90 and 120km/hr, and destructive winds that are over 120km/hr.
Tornado:	Although Australia does not see many tornadoes, when they do happen they are often validated on the ground in the aftermath to assess the intensity, this is particularly true when property was damaged. This hazard is broken into 5 categories that match the official designations of the Enhanced Fujita Scale.
Thunderstorm:	This hazard is a broader hazard that combines the three other hazards covered in Climatics Intelligence; hail, severe wind, and tornado. It also includes a climatology of official thunderstorm warnings which start in 2009.
Bushfire:	Within Climatics Intelligence bushfires are included in analysis if they are deemed as being out of control, and had warnings issued for preservation of property and/or evacuation of community and life. This does not include any low-intensity fires that are allowed to burn for weeks without interference in the NT, WA and QLD.
Tropical Cyclone:	Separated into 5 different categories, 1 being the lowest rated and 5 the highest, each tropical cyclone event is tracked and placed into a category by the Bureau of Meteorology. Tropical cyclones are generally accompanied by strong wind gusts, strong sustained winds, and heavy rainfall.

Hail

Classified as an event when hail falls from a severe thunderstorm and has been verified in size. The on-ground size classifications are grouped into 3-5cm, 6-8cm, and 9+cm. This dataset starts in 1985 and utilises EWN's proprietary spatial database. It should be noted that a population bias does exist in this dataset, particularly before 2005 when weather radar was more distributed - unfortunately if the thunderstorm was not remotely observed or no one was there to report it then there is no way for the event to be recorded and mapped.

Severe Wind

This hazard is only taking into account the severe wind gusts that were produced by convective thunderstorm, and not generated by synoptic winds or tropical cyclones. Generally these events are observed via remote sensing with doppler velocity from weather radar, ground based weather stations or verified via photos from storm damage. The hazard is categorised into two categories; damaging winds that are between 90 and 120km/hr, and destructive winds that are over 120km/hr.

Tornado

Although Australia does not see many tornadoes, when they do happen they are often validated on the ground in the aftermath to assess the intensity, this is particularly true when property was damaged. This hazard is broken into 5 categories that match the official designations of the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

Thunderstorm

This hazard is a broader hazard that combines the three other hazards covered in Climatics Intelligence; hail, severe wind, and tornado. It also includes a climatology of official thunderstorm warnings which start in 2009.

Bushfire

Within Climatics Intelligence bushfires are included in analysis if they are deemed as being out of control, and had warnings issued for preservation of property and/or evacuation of community and life. This does not include any low-intensity fires that are allowed to burn for weeks without interference in the NT, WA and QLD.

Tropical Cyclone

Separated into 5 different categories, 1 being the lowest rated and 5 the highest, each tropical cyclone event is tracked and placed into a category by the Bureau of Meteorology. Tropical cyclones are generally accompanied by strong wind gusts, strong sustained winds, and heavy rainfall.

Chronic events

Event
Drought:	Climatics derives meteorological drought from gridded monthly rainfall values over a rolling 12 month period. The analysis calculates the previous 12 month value, normalises the dataset and any months with a standardised score of -1 to -1.5 or below is classified as a moderate drought, -1.5 to -2 is classified as severe and a score of less then -2 is classed as an extreme drought. There is no formal definition for a drought in Australia but the standardised precipitation index (SPI) as used in this analysis is a commonly accepted scientific method.
Heatwave:	The Bureau of Meteorology classify a heatwave off of a calculation for the excess heat factor which takes into account the previous 30 days climatology to highlight when the population is not acclimatised to the excess heat expected. More information about the calculations can be found in the following papers: Exploring 167 years of vulnerability: An examination of extreme heat events in Australia 1844–2010 Defining and predicting Excessive Heat events, a National system
Extreme temperature:	Climatics is mostly interested in the change of extreme events, in this hazard, it classifies an extreme temperature events as a day where the maximum temperature occurs in the top 1% of all daily observations (99th percentile) and bottom 1% (1st percentile). The analysis also takes into account the number of days where the maximum or minimum temperature reach specific thresholds.
Extreme precipitation:	Climatics is mostly interested in the change of extreme events, in this hazard, it classifies an extreme precipitation events as a day where the 24 hour rainfall occurred in the top 1% of all daily observations (99th percentile). Climatics also looks at the changes between monthly rainfall and seasonal rainfall between the 1961-1990 baseline to the present day minus 30 year period.
Identifying trends in hazards:	An important aspect of Climatics is to calculate the changes being observed across the historical period data is available for. Climatics does this by comparing the frequency, duration and severity of events in the baseline period of 1961-1990 compared to the present day going back 30 years. The direction of the trend is assessed as well as the statistical significance. The baseline of 1961-1990 is an accepted baseline period from the World Meteorological Organisation.

Drought

Climatics derives meteorological drought from gridded monthly rainfall values over a rolling 12 month period. The analysis calculates the previous 12 month value, normalises the dataset and any months with a standardised score of -1 to -1.5 or below is classified as a moderate drought, -1.5 to -2 is classified as severe and a score of less then -2 is classed as an extreme drought. There is no formal definition for a drought in Australia but the standardised precipitation index (SPI) as used in this analysis is a commonly accepted scientific method.

Heatwave

The Bureau of Meteorology classify a heatwave off of a calculation for the excess heat factor which takes into account the previous 30 days climatology to highlight when the population is not acclimatised to the excess heat expected. More information about the calculations can be found in the following papers:

Exploring 167 years of vulnerability: An examination of extreme heat events in Australia 1844–2010

Defining and predicting Excessive Heat events, a National system

Extreme temperature

Climatics is mostly interested in the change of extreme events, in this hazard, it classifies an extreme temperature events as a day where the maximum temperature occurs in the top 1% of all daily observations (99th percentile) and bottom 1% (1st percentile). The analysis also takes into account the number of days where the maximum or minimum temperature reach specific thresholds.

Extreme precipitation

Climatics is mostly interested in the change of extreme events, in this hazard, it classifies an extreme precipitation events as a day where the 24 hour rainfall occurred in the top 1% of all daily observations (99th percentile). Climatics also looks at the changes between monthly rainfall and seasonal rainfall between the 1961-1990 baseline to the present day minus 30 year period.

Identifying trends in hazards

An important aspect of Climatics is to calculate the changes being observed across the historical period data is available for. Climatics does this by comparing the frequency, duration and severity of events in the baseline period of 1961-1990 compared to the present day going back 30 years. The direction of the trend is assessed as well as the statistical significance.

The baseline of 1961-1990 is an accepted baseline period from the World Meteorological Organisation.