SILO Weather Downloader+

SILO Weather Downloader+ is an R Shiny application for downloading, validating and exporting Australian climate datasets from the Queensland Government SILO (Scientific Information for Land Owners) database.

This application was predominantly developed using M365 Copilot chat prompts with much interaction and editing for occasional responses with incomplete code blocks, syntax errors, and outright hallucinations regarding baseline code references.

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Overview

SILO Weather Downloader+ provides a user-friendly workflow for accessing:

• SILO Patched Point station weather data
• SILO Grid Point (Data Drill) weather data
• Standard ASCII (.txt) outputs
• APSIM (.sim) outputs

The application combines climate data retrieval, GIS visualisation, QA assessment and export functionality into a single workflow suitable for:

• Agricultural research
• Environmental modelling
• APSIM workflows
• Climate analysis (not suitable for climate change analysis)
• Spatial decision support
• GIS applications

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Main Interface

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Key Features

Multiple Input Methods

• Manual site entry
• CSV point import
• Zipped shapefile import
• Point and polygon support
• Automatic polygon centroid generation

Figure 2: Manual entry and file upload workflow.

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Interactive Mapping

• Leaflet-based map interface
• Multiple basemap options
• State boundaries and state labels
• Dynamic layer controls
• Site, station and link QA details visualisation

Figure 3: Interactive map displaying input sites and matched stations.

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Nearest Station Matching

Each site is automatically linked to the nearest SILO Patched Point station using geographic distance calculations.

The application automatically:

• Identifies nearest stations
• Calculates site-to-station distance
• Stores station metadata
• Generates QA outputs

Figure 4. Site-to-station matching and QA links.

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Quality Assurance (QA) Mode

QA Mode provides enhanced visual validation tools.

Features include:

• Distance labels
• Colour-coded link assessment
• Elevation comparison
• Interactive inspection tools
• Request URL traceability

Distance	Assessment
< 5 km	Good
5-10 km	Moderate
> 10 km	Large

Figure 5. QA mode showing distance assessment links.

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Colourblind Safe Mode

An alternative visual palette based on the Okabe-Ito colour scheme is available.

Colours:

• Blue
• Orange
• Purple

This improves accessibility for colour vision deficiencies.

Figure 6. Colourblind-safe visualisation mode.

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Download Resume Support

Large downloads can be resumed automatically. Completed sites are tracked using:

silo_download_manifest.csv

If processing is interrupted:

1. Re-open the application.
2. Use the same settings.
3. Run the download again.
4. Previously completed sites are skipped.

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Supported Outputs

Weather Files

Grid point (site) Standard Format: SITE_name_site.txt
Patched point (station) Standard Format: STATION_NAME_number.txt

Grid point (site) APSIM Format: SITE_name_site.sim
Patched point (station) APSIM Format: STATION_NAME_number.sim

Summary Outputs

• Summary CSV
• Download manifest
• Error log

GIS Outputs

• GeoPackage (.gpkg): accessible using ArcMap, ArcGIS Pro, QGIS, MapInfo Pro, CadCorp etc.

GeoPackage layers include:

• Input points
• Input polygons
• Polygon centroids
• Grid points
• Patched point stations
• Site-to-station links
• Australian state boundaries

Figure 7. GeoPackage outputs loaded into ArcGIS Pro.

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Output Folder Structure

output_directory/

├── standard/
│   ├── patch/
│   │   └── StationName_StationID.txt
│   │
│   └── grid/
│       └── SiteName_site.txt
│
├── apsim/
│   ├── patch/
│   │   └── StationName_StationID.sim
│   │
│   └── grid/
│       └── SiteName_site.sim
│
├── silo_station_summary.csv
├── silo_download_manifest.csv
└── error_log.txt

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Workflow

Add Sites
     ↓
Review Map
     ↓
Select Format
     ↓
Select Data Source
     ↓
Choose Dates
     ↓
Run Download
     ↓
QA Review
     ↓
Export Outputs

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Installation

Required R Packages

required_pkgs <- c(
  "shiny",
  "leaflet",
  "sf",
  "readr",
  "dplyr",
  "httr",
  "rnaturalearth",
  "terra",
  "later"
)

Run Application

shiny::runApp("app.R")

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Data Source

Queensland Government SILO Climate Database

Longpaddock SILO

SILO provides Australian climate data from 1889 to present and supports a wide range of agricultural, environmental and climate modelling applications.

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License

SILO data products are distributed under:

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Users should acknowledge SILO as the original data source.

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Authors

Robert Armstrong
Data Science Collaborative Research Platform
Research Platform Fellow
The University of Queensland

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Acknowledgements

This application was developed with the assistance of The University of Queensland Enterprise M365 Copilot.

This application extends prior work developed within:

• INVITA-R
• INVITA Data Management workflows
• AAGI Spatial Platform initiatives

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Screenshots

Screenshot	Description
main_interface.png	Main application window
input_methods.png	Point and file inputs
map_view.png	Interactive map
station_matching.png	Station matching workflow
qa_mode.png	QA visualisation
colourblind_mode.png	Accessibility mode
gpkg_output.png	GIS results in QGIS