BSCH - Australian Weather Chat

This page is split up into 3 sperate sections - Forums, Mailing Lists and IRC.

Australian Weather Chat - Forums

Australian Severe Weather Association's Weather Forum - A relatively new forum run by the Australian Severe Weather Association (ASWA). The forum is fast growing in popularity and is frequented by some of the most knowledgeable weather enthusiasts in the country. Well worth a visit.

Weatherzone Forums - Run by the folks at The Weather Company (TWC). A well established, active forum for Australian weather of any description - from the latest news on storms affecting the country to snow falls on the southern ranges, it's all here.

Stormchasing.com.au Forum - Run by the Australian Storm Chasers Association. A solid user base and quite active in times of significant weather.

Australian Severe Weather - Discussion and Resources Forum - A new forum run by Michael Bath and Jimmy Deguara, two of the most experienced storm chasers in Australia.

Ski.com.au Forums - A forum with a focus on winter weather but also including a General Weather forum.

Climate Change Forums - A forum for discussion of climate change both in Australia and around the world.

Australian Weather Chat - Mailing Lists

There are two main mailing lists. Both lists offer a relaxed atmosphere with people from all corners of Australia and walks of life. The Aussie Weather list was first started in the late 90's and operated successfully up until a point a few years ago when server troubles meant emails were slow to arrive or didn't arrive at all. The Auspacwx list was started in an attempt to duplicate the list with a potentially more reliable host. As luck would have it, the Aussie Weather list came good again and not everyone moved to the new list. The end result is people on both lists, and both lists humming away quite nicely.

To subscribe to the Austpacwx list visit this page. To subscribe you need a Google ID, which can be obtained quite easily if you don't already have one.

To subscribe to the Aussie Weather list enter your email address in the box below and click "Subscribe to the Aussie Weather list". You'll receive a verification email within a few hours and once you've replied to that you're subscribed.

If you have any problems subscribing try emailing tech support. Please note the list is also governed by these simple guidelines.

There's also an archive of emails from 1998 to 2004 on the Australian Severe Weather website.

Australian Weather Chat - IRC (Internet Relay Chat)

Austnet IRC Chat Room - #weather

Started in late 1998 and hosted by the Austnet IRC servers the #weather chat room has grown to become a popular meeting place for weather enthusiasts from all around Australia. Visitors are always welcome.

Acessing the chat room using mIRC :

Step 1	Visit the mIRC website and download the latest version of the program. Australian users can download a copy from this local mirror.
2	When you run the program for the first time a dialog box will appear giving you the option to read an introduction or learn how to register the program. The introduction will run you through the steps on how to connect to a server and join a room - alternatively you can follow the brief instructions below.
3	Click anywhere in the dialog box outside of the introduction and register options, this will clear the box from the screen. A options screen will appear with a list of servers and personal information needed to log onto the servers. Enter your name, email adress (you don't have to put in your real address, anything will do) and prefered nicknames. Also make sure the "invisible mode" check box is selected.
4	Next you have to select an Austnet server. Pull down the list, scroll down to Austnet and select "Random Austnet server". Click "Connect to IRC server". The options dialog box will close and mIRC will attempt to connect to a server. If after several minutes it's unsuccesfull (the servers can fill up very quickly at peak times) try another server by going to the file menu, selecting options and selecting another Austnet random server ie. "Austnet: Random NZ server". Australian servers are prefered for obvious reasons but the international servers still work fine.
5	Once you're connected to a server an mIRC channels window will appear. In the text box at the top enter " #weather ", and click join. You're now talking in the Austnet #weather chat room!