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Data

Hourly Near-Surface Vapour Pressure Grids for Australia 

Ver: 3.0
Status of Data: onGoing
Update Frequency: periodic
Security Classification: unclassified
Dataset Published: 2026-08-04
Dataset Last Modified: 2026-08-18
Metadata viewed 7 times
Dataset accessed 0 times
Metadata Created: 2026-07-21
Metadata Last Modified: 2026-08-19
How to cite this collection:
Stewart, S., Cai, D., McVicar, T., Van Niel, T. & Bridgart, R. (2026). Hourly Near-Surface Vapour Pressure Grids for Australia. Version 3.0. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Dataset. https://dx.doi.org/10.25901/srk1-s026 
Data can be accessed from the following links:
HTTPModel-Derived Grids - Vapour pressure
HTTPREADME
HTTPPoint-of-truth metadata URL
HTTPro-crate-metadata.json
This collection provides hourly near-surface (1.5 m) vapour pressure for Australia with a spatial resolution of 1 km. These data are spatially interpolated using quart-variate thin plate splines (full spline dependence on easting, northing, elevation, and time- and space-varying coastal distance index). This collection includes: (i) a 30-year climatology for every hour on every 5th day of the year (1991-2020), (ii) a time-series of hourly vapour pressure beginning on 01/Jan/2015, (iii) an animation of the 30-year climatology from (i), and (iv) supporting metadata and point-based climatologies for weather station locations to enable comparative statistical analyses.

Further details are provided in the README file.
 
Credit
We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. This work was funded by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), an Australian Government NCRIS enabled project, and is supported by the use of TERN infrastructure.


 
Purpose
These data were developed to support numerous scientific applications.
 
Lineage
Data not provided. 
Method DocumentationData not provided.
Procedure StepsData not provided.
Spatial Description
Data not provided. 
Temporal Coverage
From 2015-01-01 to on going 
Spatial Resolution

Distance of 1000 Metres

Vertical Extent

Data not provided.

Data Quality Assessment Scope
Statistical performance was evaluated using leave one out cross-validation.
 
Data Quality Report
Data not provided. 
Data Quality Assessment Outcome
Hourly climatology (01/Jan/1991–31/Dec/2020, 482 stations): R² = 0.98, RMSE = 0.68 hPa and Bias = -0.01 hPa.
Hourly time-series (01/Jan/2015–23/Jan/2024, 525 stations): R² = 0.92, RMSE = 1.89 hPa and Bias = 0.00 hPa.
 
ANZSRC - FOR
Climatology
Meteorology
Data Stream
Climate and Bioclimate
Model-Derived Grids
Weather
GCMD Sciences
ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR - VAPOR PRESSURE
Horizontal Resolution
1 km - < 10 km or approximately .01 degree - < .09 degree
Parameters
water vapor pressure
Project
TERN Landscapes
Temporal Resolution
Hourly - < Daily
Topic
climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere
geoscientificInformation
Author
Stewart, Stephen
Co-Author
Cai, Dejun
McVicar, Tim R
Van Niel, Thomas G
Bridgart, Robert
Contact Point
Stewart, Stephen
Publisher
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Continental scale spatial temporal interpolation of near-surface air temperature: do 1 km hourly grids for Australia outperform regional and global reanalysis outputs?
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
80 Meiers Road, Indooroopilly, Queensland, 4068, Australia.
Contact Us
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license allows others to copy, distribute, display, and create derivative works provided that they credit the original source and any other nominated parties. Details are provided at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 
TERN services are provided on an "as-is" and "as available" basis. Users use any TERN services at their discretion and risk. They will be solely responsible for any damage or loss whatsoever that results from such use including use of any data obtained through TERN and any analysis performed using the TERN infrastructure.
Web links to and from external, third party websites should not be construed as implying any relationships with and/or endorsement of the external site or its content by TERN.

Please advise any work or publications that use this data via the online form at https://www.tern.org.au/research-publications/#reporting 
Please cite this dataset as {Author} ({PublicationYear}). {Title}. {Version, as appropriate}. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Dataset. {Identifier}.