Why Aussies are furious over $96M BoM website update

Australian Community Media

The Bureau of Meteorology is facing backlash after spending nearly one hundred million dollars to revamp its website, with its new interface proving to have less functionality than before - particularly for users in regional and rural areas. This video includes ACM-produced voiceover powered by AI.

Transcript

00:00The Bureau of Meteorology is under fire after spending nearly $100 million to revamp a website,

00:07with its new interface proving less than popular with users.

00:11The bomb.com.au registers around 2 million views a day.

00:15Its website rebuild was meant to make it more accessible and easier to navigate,

00:20but users, particularly in rural and regional areas, have found it cumbersome.

00:25We didn't make the change lightly, and I appreciate that it'll take some time for the community to adjust to them.

00:33One of the biggest concerns amongst browser-based users was the change in colour coding used for the RAIN radar.

00:39Instead of being able to click on a specific radar map and being automatically taken to a location or region,

00:46the map defaulted to a whole of Australia viewpoint, with all radar information merged together.

00:52Taking on the feedback from the community, the bomb did revert back to the original colour coding system,

00:59soon after the update caused confusion.

01:01The Bureau has changed the new weather map's default rain view to Rain Reflectivity, or DBZ.

01:08DBZ displays rainfall intensity using a colour scale that many of you will recognise from the old website's radar loops.

01:15The DBZ colour scale shows areas of heavier rainfall, and sometimes hail, in a very dark red or black.

01:23The new look also meant the specific GPS coordinates could not be used to zero in on locations where mapping may not be fully available.

01:32This was the one function on their website that many Australians, not just in regional areas, but everywhere use,

01:39but particularly for in remote and regional areas where you could put in the coordinates of your property.

01:44You got a pretty good idea what weather front was coming through.

01:48This is a tool that in the hour of your need, you actually know what's coming, as well as river heights,

01:52so that you can make informed decisions about moving stock, pulling pumps out of rivers,

01:58so they're in higher ground, and to change it.

02:01The BOM has assured the community that it will be moving its bushfire safety information onto the new site,

02:07but there have been significant concerns over the October-November rollout,

02:12excluding vital parts of this function as the summer fire season looms.

02:16Easy access to individual radars have been removed.

02:20The colour scheme we've become accustomed to has changed, and platitudes from Canberra won't cut it.

02:26BOM CEO, Dr Stuart Minchin, defended the enormous cost of the website overhaul,

02:32blaming the blowout on inflation and coalition government caps on the public service workforce.

02:38The program was delivered throughout the extended COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted key labour markets,

02:45and also during a period of beyond-forecast inflation, which particularly impacted technology costs.

02:50The program as a whole went roughly 15% over budget.

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