Bureau of Meteorology failed to predict dangerous weather conditions
The Bureau of Meteorology has accepted it failed to predict the rapid winds and hot temperatures that fanned the South Coast’s horrendous bushfires. Find out where they went wrong.
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The Bureau of Meteorology has blamed the South Coast’s diverse topography for failing to predict last night’s mammoth winds and high temperatures that fanned bushfires in the region today.
The national forecaster’s predictions for the southern tablelands were significantly wrong with discrepancies of up to 7 degrees.
BOM predicted Ulladulla would reach 33 degrees but the southern town reached a sweltering 40.3C.
Nearby Moruya reached 38.4C despite predictions of 33C.
Senior forecaster Jake Phillips accepted that the rapidly rising bushfires in the region show that “there were a lot of winds stronger than we thought.”
Bushfires in Currowan and Clyde Mountain are burning at emergency level while nearby Charleys Forest burns at a watch and act level.
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“A lot of the fires flared up overnight. Interestingly enough at our weather stations we didn’t see particularly strong winds overnight but they did happen,” Mr Phillips told The Daily Telegraph.
“It’s difficult to say but you often get around mountainous terrain in the southern tablelands, there is variation in topography and you can get different variations in locations that aren’t as far apart.
Our weather stations didn’t pick up anything extraordinary but it’s not to say it didn’t happen.”
Mr Phillips said it was difficult for the bureau to forecast temperatures in such volatile weather conditions but he did not comment on whether the incorrect predictions lulled residents into a false sense of security about conditions.
The bureau had put out a damaging winds warning early in the morning after seeing overnight conditions.
“It’s not possible for us to have a weather station everywhere,” Mr Phillips said.
“In our network we didn’t see anything that reached the criteria of strong winds. They didn’t get to the levels that require us to issue severe weather warning,” he said.
“We had a warning this morning anyway, after the overnight period.”
Predictions in the west were also off the mark with Penrith reaching 46.3C instead of the predicted 43C.
Originally published as Bureau of Meteorology failed to predict dangerous weather conditions
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