In the world of weather forecasting, a few minutes can make a significant difference, especially when the safety of a plane full of people is at stake.
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For the Canberra Airport office of the Bureau of Meteorology, where the primary task is aviation forecasts, a new radar will give the extra time needed to provide airlines with more accurate forecasts when conditions get rough.
The hardware has now been installed at Captains Flat, and the new data will be coming online over the next few weeks, including boosting the radar information frequency from every 10 minutes to every six minutes.
The bureau's Sean Carson said upgrading the Canberra hardware to a Doppler radar, which can predict changes in wind speed and direction over a 250 kilometre radius, will make a significant difference to the accuracy of short-term severe weather forecasts provided to airlines and Canberra Airport.
''I know four minutes doesn't sound like a huge difference, but it actually is, because that 10-minute window that you're waiting is actually 10 minutes of old data,'' he said.
''Particularly when you're reacting to a thunderstorm crossing an aerodrome - getting that data 10 minutes later or getting it six minutes later, that extra four minutes can certainly provide a lot more information to put out a warning very quickly.''
Mr Carson said the upgrade was timely because the bureau expected the frequency of significant weather events to increase as world temperatures slowly rose.
''If you put more heat [into the atmosphere], it actually generates more energy. So the prediction is that we'll actually see more severe events more frequently,'' he said.
But Mr Carson said while the new radar would mean better information for airlines, it wouldn't have much of an impact on predicting fog conditions - an occasional contributor to delays at the airport, particularly over the next two months.
''The fog season really picks up from the middle of May. Certainly from the middle of May to the middle of July is the foggiest time in Canberra,'' he said.
Mr Carson said fogs form after a night of clear sky, cool temperatures and still conditions, so long as there is some moisture in the air. But he said the difference between a patchy fog and a thick fog can often be the presence of a strong nuclei in the air for water vapour to bind to.
''That's why when the [Rural Fire Service] do hazard reduction burns, sometimes at this time of the year it can lead to really bad foggy mornings the following day if other conditions are also right,'' he said.
