‘Absolute sh*tshow’: Calls for ‘heads to roll’ for BOM radar disaster

The Bureau of Meteorology is under attack from furious Queenslanders after a “terrible” new weather radar failed its first big storm season test.

The new BoM weather radar has been panned, with many people saying it led them to underestimate Sunday's storm.

• Lightning shuts down second Callide unit

The new Bureau of Meteorology website has whipped up a storm almost as big as the wild weather on Sunday, with Caboolture residents furious they have been unceremoniously dumped.

It comes as a BoM meteorologist admitted he was still using the old website, preferring that to the new one.

“I don’t like it (the new website) myself,” BoM’s Livio Regano told ABC Radio on Monday following the storms.

The BoM radar map, released as the summer storm season was about to hit top gear, forced users to laboriously zoom in from a default map showing all of Australia.

It even stretched as far afield as Papua New Guinea and Samoa, compared with the former radar which allowed users to select a radius of 128km or 64km. That was enough to cover all of southeast Queensland.

But Caboolture has disappeared as a locator, despite the City of Moreton Bay town’s booming population and wild weather.

It also now lacked useful features and had a confusing new colour coding of intense storm activity, with black previously indicating the most destructive part of a storm.

The new BoM radar which forces users to laboriously zoom in to their area.

BoM meteorologist Mr Regano acknowledged the public outcry over changes but said “we really need to get used to the new one”.

“It was never going to be a smooth transition to (a new version of) literally one of the most popular websites in Australia. Naturally, it’s going to upset a lot of people when there are changes.

“Change doesn’t come well, especially when we have often a much older audience that’s become used to the (old) website.

“In the end, it comes down to what we’re used to. A lot of people have complained about it being clunky for many years and so the BoM has really just tried to satisfy the complaints - and now of course it’s generated a new lot of complaints.”

He added the new radar map was “calibrated differently” and “I’m sure there are things the bureau can polish up” but was optimistic about the new website.

“Of course, change is never welcome, especially when our website’s been frozen in time for 15 years. I think in the fullness of time we will probably see it has many advantages.”

Veteran meteorologist Anthony Cornelius earlier said it “beggared belief’’ that the Bureau would roll out such significant changes to a vital service just before the summer storm season.

“The decision to push the site live on October 22 made no sense at all,’’ he said.

“It takes time for people to get used to a new site and learn where everything is.’’

Mr Cornelius said mobile phone apps using the previous maps did not work when people tried to use them on Sunday.

The new radar map also used a different way to display storm intensity which some residents said caused them to think the weekend weather event would be weaker than it really was.

Meteorologist Tony Auden said the new map had confused people who previously could assume that black areas meant hail was coming.

What the old BOM radar looked like compared to the new one.

A BoM spokeswoman said they conducted user research and testing to understand how people used the website to identify improvements. 

The new site was available in “beta’’ for over 15 months and feedback in that time was “overwhelmingly positive’’.

“As we saw with the relaunch of the BoM weather app in 2020, a dip in customer satisfaction is expected as customers familiarise themselves with the new website,’’ she said. 

“We expect satisfaction to increase as customers become accustomed to the new website and discover its benefits.’’

The new website presented blended images from multiple radars, improving reliability, while the “legacy’’ site did not provide consistent viewing of rainfall intensity.

But users could choose to display radar images using the same measures as the old website if they preferred.

Both the new weather map and the app “smoothed’’ the mm/hr rainfall intensity image to eliminate errors.

She said the new website was rolled out gradually on October 22. Forecasts and warnings were not affected during that time and the new site featured more prominent warnings.

The Bureau was in close contact with emergency services about the changes.

Most users agreed it was harder to navigate, with some calling it “an absolute sh*tshow”.

“It’s crap and a pain to use, the old one was heaps better!!” one user said on X.

Another posted: “It is useless. The rain radar is pointless. Why on earth did they change it?”

“It is terrible,’’ one reader said. “The information that is required is impossible to locate. Cancel this update. It is embarrassing.”

As well as the tedious zooming, many people blasted the removal of critical information.

“Where is the information about rainfall, wind, temperatures at locations?’’ one person said.

“Just go back to the previous version. Info needs to be easy to access.”

And one weather junkie posted: “What a useless pile of rubbish … won’t save to homepage properly … radar is useless … haven’t been able to even find Doppler yet … disgraceful … heads should roll.’’

The BoM has been contacted for comment.

It comes after Translink faced an outpouring of criticism following the introduction of its new journey planner app, with many commuters saying they had switched to Google searches because the Translink upgrade was so clumsy and unreliable.

The old website was still active, as of October 27, at: Reg.bom.gov.au