June 1872: Severe storm and flooding in Perth
Our research has found that in June 1872, Perth experienced one of its most severe storms of the 19th century. Barometer observations made during this storm show that atmospheric pressure was at one of...
View ArticleWhy we don’t use computers to transcribe these historical weather records
We’ve had a few queries on our current Zooniverse project Forum page about why we aren’t using machines or artificial intelligence (AI) to transcribe these weather journals. Sometimes, this type of...
View Article‘Hoar frost’ in Perth, 1899
The term ‘hoar frost’ comes from the Old English term ‘hoar’ which can mean old, aged, venerable or grey – although it’s most commonly used to mean ‘grey-haired with age’. As a weather description, it...
View ArticleReconstructing past extremes using historical wind observations
In November and December of 1829, the Perth region was battered by “strong squalls” and a “very fresh wind and boisterous sea“. The gale-force winds pushed the H.M.S Success aground, and was part of a...
View ArticlePerth’s deadly heatwave of 1896
A “wave of heat” that was described at the time as “abnormal” and “unbearable”, affected Perth, Western Australia, from 1-4 January, 1896. During the “exceedingly long spell of hot weather”, there...
View ArticleProject Update: Perth Zooniverse project close to completion
A little over two months ago, on 20 April 2021, we launched a new citizen science project to transcribe Perth’s daily weather journals from 1880 to 1900. This Zooniverse project is now at 78%...
View ArticleThe longest daily weather record for Perth is now fully transcribed!
Our citizen science volunteers have now helped to fill a twenty-year data gap in Perth’s daily weather record, by transcribing historical weather journals that cover the period 1880 to 1900. It took...
View ArticleJuly 1898: Storm in Perth strands hundreds
On Tuesday 12 July, 1898, train lines in the Perth region of Western Australia were severely damaged due to severe flooding from heavy rainfall. This caused hundreds of people to be cut off from food,...
View ArticleWrap up of Climate History Australia’s citizen science projects on Zooniverse
In 2020 and 2021, Climate History Australia ran two citizen science projects on Zooniverse. The aim was to transcribe observations from 19th century handwritten meteorological journals from Adelaide...
View ArticleFebruary 1900: Bushfires surround Perth during a heatwave
“Yesterday, the city might almost be said to have been encircled by bush fires. There was hardly a point of the compass but was marked by huge volumes of smoke rising from the bush, and the resultant...
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