Our Difference
How is this Mesonet different from other weather station networks?
The COtL Mesonet was built specifically to combat agricultural pesticide spray drift. It is the only network in SA which measures and publicly displays hazardous inversions. It is illegal for farmers to spray during hazardous inversions as this is a large driver of long-distance spray drift. By providing real-time detection of hazardous inversions, the COtL Mesonet provides more safe sprayable hours each night and empowers farmers to know when it's okay to spray. Knowing you’re doing the right thing by your community and environment is a powerful thing.
They are further differentiated from many other networks, as they are one of the few which have been designed by both an expert meteorologist and local agriculturalists. The Mesonet is specifically suited to agricultural needs, yet also maintains similar standards to that of the Bureau of Meteorology’s (BoM) network. A large majority of other weather station networks do not have the same data quality standards as the COtL Mesonet or the BoM . The BoM actually uses the Mesonet data for its own research purposes. The COtL Mesonet has data you can trust.
The COtL Mesonet will soon be one of the largest agricultural weather station networks in SA with over 110 ten-metre high sturdy towers. This will cover ~50% of SA’s arable land. We also provide data from across the entire network to all our users – local and regional ag-weather data at your fingertips.
The COtL Mesonet website works well on smart phones and in low internet areas. The website is also one of the few which shows real-time colour-coded maps with wind directions, as well as the option to drill down for each station for time histories of specific variables.
For these reasons, the Mesonet is unique within Australia and the world. As the Mesonet expands further, its reliability and usefulness will only increase with greater economies of scale.
