As the weather bureau pumps out crucial cyclone information, millions look elsewhere

During the fraught wait for Cyclone Alfred to make landfall, millions of Australians are relying on the Bureau of Meteorology to update them on the storm’s expected trajectory, but increasingly, people are looking elsewhere, too, including a range of online independent and even amateur forecasters.

“We like to see ourselves as a weather family,” says Thomas Hinterdorfer, chief forecaster for Higgins Storm Chasing, an independent weather service that grew out of the social media accounts and blogs of a small group of storm chasers which now has around 1.3 million followers online. That’s more, says Hinterdorfer, than the Bureau of Meteorology.

Hinterdorfer, a 30-year-old who admits to being “addicted to extreme weather” for a decade, believes the group’s popularity is born of the interactive nature of their work as much as its forecasts.

“People hate seeing the damage caused by extreme weather,” he says, but they are “drawn into the wow factor of the storms and what they look like. They love the reports. They love seeing how much rain people are getting ... the size of the hail.

“I think with our social media page, people are definitely loving the fact that they can see all the storms. Whenever there’s a storm in Queensland, we’re going to see a photo of it; there’s gonna be someone that sends a photo in.”

But can people trust the predictions of amateur forecasters analysing a threat such as Cyclone Alfred compared with the staff of the BoM? Hinterdorfer reckons they can, boasting that though untrained, Higgins’ three full-time employees have 60 years of experience in forecasting and storm chasing between them.

“We know how to forecast, and we’re good at forecasting,” he says.

Ben Domensino, a professional forecaster with the independent outfit Weatherzone, who is often quoted by media, including this masthead, says the rise of independent forecasters reflects a general shift in media culture.

“I don’t really have an opinion on whether it’s a good or a bad thing, but I think it’s just probably the nature of how people get their information these days.

“Some people prefer to use phone apps. Some people prefer to watch TV or listen to the radio. Others get their information from social media. So I think that’s just an inevitable outcome of the modern landscape of how people get severe weather information.

“Social media is just a tool that has allowed some private companies and even amateur meteorologists or weather enthusiasts to get a big following.”

It is no accident, though, that the rise of alternative weather information has come about in a period when government institutions the world over have faced increased mistrust, including the BoM, which faced criticism over what some believed were belated warnings during the Lismore floods.

Misinformation about government agencies and the weather itself marked the US response to Hurricane Milton that hit Florida last year, and recent social media posts from northern NSW and South East Queensland suggest some residents are concerned about the BoM’s information.

They might not be aware their preferred outlets are likely basing their forecasts on information provided by the BoM or using the same suite of data feeds as the BoM, even if they are being analysed by staff without the benefit of the weather bureau’s resources or specialist training.

“It is highly unlikely that most of these outfits are running their own weather models, just because it takes a lot of computational resources to do that,” says Professor Andy Hogg of the Australian National University’s Research School of Earth Sciences.

“Most national agencies that produce forecasts make them publicly available, so it’s quite possible for private people to pick up the BoM information, or information out of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, for example, and to process that in a very regularised fashion.

“People can process that and put their own layers on top of it and release it as their predictions, and that’s fine as far as I can see. If people are willing to pay for information from a private company, they are welcome to do that.”

That said, Hogg believes that the BoM provides an excellent and comprehensive service for free.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Angus Hines, a senior meteorologist with the BoM, believes that as a dangerous weather system bears down on Australia’s east coast, people should stick with the BoM.

“I think in these really severe and potentially destructive events like tropical cyclones, your best bet is to get your information direct from,” he told this masthead’s The Morning Edition podcast this week.

“We’ve got a tropical cyclone team of forecasters, actually, which are working 24 hours a day at the moment not just monitoring Tropical Cyclone Alfred in its current state, but analysing how it might change in the next day, two days, three days, five days.

“And they’ll be adjusting the tracks and the warnings in accordance with the latest information that comes through at any time of day.”

“Now, when it comes to information about what’s the best thing to do on the ground as a tropical cyclone’s approaching, that’s where you’re probably best to look to your local emergency services.”

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