The new AI-powered weather app from Channel 7’s Jane Bunn

When Australian meteorologist and Channel 7 weather presenter Jane Bunn is invited to speak at events in agricultural communities – one of the most common questions she is asked is “what weather app do you use?”

And, when she realised there wasn’t a single app on the market she could recommend, the TV personality teamed up with software engineer David Hemming to launch Jane’s Weather, a one-stop shop for hyper local weather forecasting for all Australians.

“When making a commercial decision based on the weather, people will look at so many apps and websites all with different scenarios and information. They’ll then ask themselves, which one is right?” says Jane.

“That is a big problem within industries like agriculture, construction and renewable energies – they don’t know what to trust.”

“I’m solving this problem by providing all the available guidance under the one umbrella, so that you don’t need to jump from website to website or app to app.”

Jane’s Weather provides customised weather forecasts and insights, adapted to local conditions and enhanced by AI to plan your resources and operations at a glance, for more than 6000 users.

“So whether you’re a farmer or in construction, we are providing specific weather data to improve the odds of making the right decision at the right time,” she said.

“All the information at your fingertips and it’s packaged into one nice and easy app.”

New Directions

LaunchVic and Agriculture Victoria’s $50,000 grant has provided the Melbourne-based startup with a silver lining, says Jane.

“We’re hoping that 2024 will be a much better year for us. We have spent the last year laying down the groundwork and we’re getting into a position to be self-sufficient,” she said.

“While the cash injection was very helpful, we also received the expertise and advice that came with it in the form of access to mentors.

“Through the chats with the mentor that I was connected with, I found that I was led in directions that I didn’t realise we needed to go and made me think about things in different ways.”

The funding also saw the team hire an AI and Machine Learning expert to work on the beta version of Jane’s Weather Pro, their first professional forecasting service.

“During the course of this grant, we have been able to get Jane’s Weather Pro into Trial phase with more than 150 users co-designing the platform to make sure we’re building exactly what they need.

“By being able to move through that process and get that many people without advertising has been incredibly encouraging for us.”

Changing Forecasts

Jane said Australia has had an interesting and changable last 12 months weather-wise, transitioning from La Nina into El Nino.

“This summer we saw the Tasman Sea becoming incredibly warm, much warmer than average and that became our new source of moisture, offsetting the effects of El Nino,” she said.

“With such volatile climate drivers, it’s really important to keep up to date with the latest weather guidance as better data and better decision making reduce our users risk and exposure. Always make sure your insights are coming from a reputable source.”

Applications for the AgTech Grants Program are accepted on a rolling basis. For more information, visit launchvic.org/agtech.