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Bureau of Meteorology Atmospheric high-resolution Regional Reanalysis for Australia - Version 2 (BARRA2)

BARRA2 presents a moderate-resolution regional atmospheric reanalysis (BARPA-R2/RE2) and a kilometre-scale downscaled reanalysis (BARRA-C2) over Australia and surrounding regions, spanning from January 1979 to present day. BARRA2 can be used for weather and climate research, case studies of past weather events, studying climate variability and developing climatology products, driving impact modelling (e.g., hydrological, coastal, and fire), evaluation and calibration of other modelling work (e.g

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Source details

Licence: [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Evidence quality: 45.7

Listed in aws-odr public catalogue API on 2026-10-16; relevance/value screened (haiku).

Metadata checked: 2026-10-14T13:20:00.000Z

What's in it

Data offered docs-verified: temperature, moisture, wind and flux variables at sub-surface, surface, pressure and above-surface levels · BARRA-R2 convective parameters: CAPE, CIN, lapse rates, bulk wind difference, storm-relative helicity · BARRA-RE2 22-member time-lagged ensemble · BARRA-C2 lightning flash rate, updraft helicity, derived radar reflectivity
Coverage docs-verified: Australia and surrounding regions (including parts of southeast Asia and New Zealand) · January 1979 to present day
Resolution docs-verified: Spatial: 12 km (BARRA-R2), 24 km (BARRA-RE2), 4.4 km (BARRA-C2). Temporal: 20-minute, hourly, 3-hourly, daily and monthly, depending on product
Update frequency docs-verified: Yearly
Access docs-verified: Free and open. The S3 bucket can be listed and downloaded without an AWS account (aws s3 ls --no-sign-request). Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Useful for

Use cases llm-inferred: Historical event case studies (e.g. storm or rainfall event reconstruction) for flood risk and FRA evidence · Meteorological forcing inputs for hydrological or coastal impact modelling · Convective hazard screening (CAPE, shear, lightning) for surface water flood context · Climatology baselines for climate risk assessment and evaluation of projection outputs
Audience llm-inferred: flood consultants · hydrologists · drainage engineers · coastal engineers · climate risk analysts · GIS analysts

Limitations

Constraints llm-inferred: Convective parameters from the convection-permitting BARRA-C2 should be used with caution, as they are more commonly computed from coarse reanalyses with parameterised convection · Yearly update frequency means the most recent period may lag real time · Coverage is Australia and surrounding regions only; UK use would need a different source

Evidence

Check upstream coverage, uncertainty and licence before use. Station observations are not forecasts or design levels.