Newcastle council will propose a new weather station be built in the city's west to improve recordings and provide data that is relevant to the growing urban fringe.
The council unanimously passed a motion last month to write to the Bureau of Meteorology advocating for a new automatic station to add to the existing one at Nobbys.
The motion, moved by councillors John Church, Kath Elliot and Andrea Rufo, came after former NBN weather presenter Nat Jeffery raised concerns about the city having only one automatic station, and how useful its recordings were for the city given it is on the coast.
He also highlighted that there had been issues with the Nobbys station recently.
"Clearly there is a gap in our city in the collection of our weather data, particularly in the western suburbs," Cr Church said.
"This an area that has been identified by council as a significant growth corridor and various plans ... have predicted many new residents will be making their homes in these suburbs.
"Collecting weather data is significant for organisations like EnergyAustralia, Hunter Water, for councils, for flood planning, for bushfire planning.
"I think we need to recognise that our coastal weather is different to our inland weather, and have a second weather station in the city that operates 24 hours."
Cr Church, who proposed Summerhill tip as a possible site for a new station, acknowledged there was a station at Callaghan, but its readings are taken only twice a day.
Inquiries to the Bureau of Meteorology have since revealed no readings have been recorded at Callaghan since April, because the federal agency lost a contracted observer "due to a combination of factors including COVID-19 restrictions".
The Bureau said it was yet to receive council's letter but decisions about where to place new observation equipment were "based on many considerations including impacts on populated areas, the agricultural and aviation industries, regions subject to variable and extreme weather, and [if] any specific services are required".
"Automatic weather stations form only one part of a composite observing network, which includes satellite, lightning detection data services, upper air and surface observations [that] are then fed into advanced computer models," a spokesman said.
"These resilient, national systems allow the Bureau to produce reliable, efficient and effective warning products.
"[Our] network of approx. 610 weather stations includes seven in the Hunter, which means the area is represented very well for meteorologists to produce high-quality forecasts."
There were some faults with the Nobbys station between December and May after a lightning strike, but "no further faults have been recorded", a spokesman said.
