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.
02:19The 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,
02:44and also during a period of beyond-forecast inflation, which particularly impacted technology costs.
02:50The program as a whole went roughly 15 per cent over budget.
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