The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has been helping Australians track the weather for over a century, but it probably didn’t see this kind of storm coming.
On Wednesday, the Bureau launched its first major website overhaul in 12 years, describing it as a “modern and sleek” redesign aimed at making weather updates clearer and easier to access.
BOM Acting CEO Dr Peter Stone said the new site was developed with community consultation and aims to make it easier for Australians to access daily updates and warnings, which are viewed more than 2.6 billion times each year.
But for many users, the forecast was far from sunny.
Frustrated Aussies were quick to share their dismay over the new layout on Facebook and Reddit.
“I thought I was going crazy! The new layout sucks,” one user wrote.
“The rain radar is rooted. Just a Temu version of what it once was – all the quality and definition are simply missing,” another said.
“The new website is useless. Tried checking for storm forecasts yesterday and can’t find anything. Can’t even find the radar maps — totally useless,” a Facebook commenter said.
Some were so unimpressed they began circulating links to the old version of the site.
Speaking to the ABC, northeast Victorian farmer Stuart Barber said the update made it harder to find crucial weather observations.
“With the weather fronts coming through, it’s really important for us to be able to manage the animals’ welfare and health,” Barber said.
A few users did find the update useful, with one Reddit user saying, “It’s easier to get to the stuff I actually use – daily and hourly forecasts – and it has https.”
Senior Bureau meteorologist Angus Hines responded to the criticism, telling ABC Radio that while the redesign “might take some getting used to”, all the important information remains.
“It looks a bit different, it plays a bit different, but all the important information is still there, you might just have to find it in a slightly different way,” Hines said.
“We know people are very passionate about the weather,” the BOM’s senior meteorologist, Andrea Peace said.
She also noted that the BOM did expect challenges but “hope that each time someone uses it, they’ll discover something new”.
The BOM notes that the rollout is just the beginning, with user feedback helping to shape future improvements.
All this to say the BOM hasn’t learnt its lesson from 2022 when it tried to rebrand and get people to call it “the Bureau” instead of the BOM.
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