Tasmania’s Nichols family receives award for more than 100 years of rainfall recording for BOM

In short:
For more than 100 years, a family in southern Tasmanian have voluntarily been collecting rainfall data at their farm in Richmond and sending it to the Bureau of Meteorology.

The BOM has awarded the Nichols family the 100-Year Excellence Award presented by the governor of Tasmania for their longstanding commitment to climate data collection.

What’s next?
The farm’s current custodian Richie Nichols will continue to collect rainfall data, as one of more than 4,600 volunteers around the country who contribute data daily.

Every morning at 9 o’clock, Richie Nichols walks out to check the rain gauge on his family’s farm in the Tasmanian town of Richmond.

Noting the number of millimetres, he then sends that data to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).

This is something his family have been doing since 1915.

“We record that in a book and then we enter those into the BOM website and we do that every day,” Mr Nichols said.

Rainfall data is very important for researchers to understand climate trends and riverine water resources, and can help predict floods.

The Nichols family were presented the 100-Year Excellence Award on Monday at Government House by the Governor of Tasmania, Her Excellency the Honourable Barbara Baker.

An award generations in the making
The farm has been in Mr Nichols’ family for generations and he said the award means a lot — not just for him but for “all those who preceded me and kept the rainfall records”.

“My great grandfather Joseph Phillip Nichols bought the property who then gave it to his eldest son, Hobart Osman Nichols and then the property ended up with my father Jeffrey Osman Nichols and then it’s come down to me,” he said.

Mr Nichols said contributing to climate data is part of a family legacy that involves looking after the environment for the next generation.

“It’s very important that we have a generational legacy that passes down through the generations, and we’re very keen on that in terms of tree planting and looking after the environment,” he said.

The family has recorded the data through floods and drought, with last year returning a notable result for the Brookbank Estate.

“Richmond is classified as a semi-arid area, and last year was the second driest year on record in terms of Brookbank, which was about 320 millimetres,” he said.

The BOM’s general manager, Chantal Donnelly, said these important awards are often the result of families that have stayed on a property for generations.

“It is obviously hard for one person to do on their own for 100 years,” she said.

“It’s just another great example of how we can have these intergenerational pieces of information that are really important for country.”

BOM relies on volunteers for climate data

Since the BOM was established in 1908, volunteers have been integral to its vast data collection.

There are currently over 4,600 volunteers around Australia who contribute daily.

Ms Donnelly said the volunteers are very important for BOM to get an “accurate picture of rainfall across the country”.

“While the Bureau does have a number of automated weather stations around Australia, Australia is a vast country, and it’s just simply not enough,” she said.

“So the rainfall data that we collect from the Nichols family is just one of many different data points that we can put together.”

Mr Nichols said he hopes their family continue to collect rainfall data for years to come

A sensor for collecting rain, a rain gauge