Doppler Radar Investigation Of Hail Fall Trajectories (DRIFT)

Severe thunderstorms cause billions of dollars damage to communities across Australia every year. For the 2025/26 severe thunderstorm season alone, the insurance industry loss estimation organisation PERILS, estimates that convective thunderstorms have cost the insurance industry nearly $4.5 billion1. These losses are driven by the concomitant hazards of strong winds, heavy rainfall and large hail that can be associated with severe thunderstorms. Of these hazards, hail damage, and particularly damage caused by large hail, is often the driver of large losses, with vehicles, crops, solar panels and roofing material all being particularly susceptible to this form of damage.

DRIFT - a partnership between UQ, Bureau of Meteorology and Suncorp will investigate hail fail trajectories in the 2026 and 2027 southeast Queensland thunderstorm season using fixed and mobile weather radar.

Energy Balance research of coral reefs

Corals reefs face a wide range of threats from pollution, overfishing, mining, tourism and climate change. The WACSRA are recognised globally for leading research to understand the energy balance of coral reefs so that the correct attributions of controls on the thermal environments of coral reefs can be made. Their research has shown that local meteorology and hydrodynamics are the primary controls on reef water temperatures and not for example, background global warming. Following a decade of such research at UQ's Heron Island research station, the team are now partnering with researchers at Geological Survey Israel Dead Sea Observatory  and are using eddy covariance systems to quantify energy exchanges over the desert fringing coral reefs in the Gulf of Eilat.