{"id":247482,"date":"2025-10-29T00:34:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T00:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/247482\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T00:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T00:34:09","slug":"bureau-of-meteorology-ordered-to-fix-new-website-after-torrent-of-complaints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/247482\/","title":{"rendered":"Bureau of Meteorology ordered to fix new website after torrent of complaints"},"content":{"rendered":"

The federal government has told the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) to fix its new $4.1 million website after a torrent of complaints by Australians, including farmers who are finding it difficult to use.<\/p>\n

The BOM described the changes as “modern and sleek” when the new website went live <\/a>last week, during wild weather in Victoria<\/a> and extreme heat across Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Energy Minister Chris Bowen told ABC Radio National Breakfast the changes missed the mark.<\/p>\n

“The bureau clearly has work to do in that it has lost community confidence in the new website,” Mr Bowen said.’Not meeting expectations’<\/p>\n

Environment Minister Murray Watt has discussed the issue with BOM acting chief executive Peter Stone, saying the site was “not meeting many users’ expectations”.<\/p>\n

“I made clear my expectations that the BOM needed to consider this feedback and, where appropriate, adjust the website’s settings as soon as possible,” Mr Watt said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“This includes urgent consideration of improvements to the website’s functionality and usability.”<\/p>\n

Mr Watt said Mr Stone was considering the feedback and what adjustments could be made.<\/p>\n

The bureau has been asked to provide a briefing to state and territory emergency services ministers this week on the new website and the steps it is taking to improve it.<\/p>\n

“Australians deserve to have confidence in these important services,” Mr Watt said.<\/p>\n

“My office and I will continue to engage closely with the BOM and ensure public safety is its foremost priority.”<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The new BOM website has not been well received. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)<\/p>\n

Farmers not happy<\/p>\n

Nationals leader David Littleproud is calling for a review after locals in his Queensland electorate of Maranoa struggled to find information they needed after a recent rain event.<\/p>\n

“I am hearing from many locals that the new platform no longer allows them to enter GPS coordinates for their specific property locations, restricting searches to towns or postcodes,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Mr Littleproud said farmers were unable to access localised river heights and rainfall information data.<\/p>\n

“Others have found the website difficult to navigate and note they cannot locate the radar function without extensive exploration of the site,” he said.<\/p>\n

Almost 2 million daily users<\/p>\n

The bureau website receives about 1.8 million visits every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those numbers can increase to 5.7 million during extreme weather.<\/p>\n

A BOM spokesperson said the new website was the “most complex technological transformation ever undertaken by the bureau”.<\/a><\/p>\n

The spokesperson said community feedback on the new website had been “overwhelmingly positive” during a 12-month beta testing phase.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal government has told the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) to fix its new $4.1 million website after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[146969,61838,6884,28486,43,146968,146967,44,41,39,42,40,146970,140129],"class_list":["post-247482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-backlash-over-bureau-website","tag-bom","tag-bureau-of-meteorology","tag-chris-bowen","tag-headlines","tag-how-bad-is-the-new-bom-website","tag-new-bom-website","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-weather-bureau-website","tag-website"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}