Cut the snarkiness and leave BOM alone

LAY off the Bureau of Meteorology. There’s more to Victoria than Melbourne and while Melburnians are complaining about dodging the apocalypse, rural Victorians are in it.

HERE’S something that may come as a shock to city-dwellers — there’s more to Victoria than Melbourne.

And that’s something we should perhaps bear in mind before contributing to the outpouring of sarcasm about the failure of the “storm of the century” to do much more than cause a few puddles in the city.

Events were cancelled, people worked from home or left work early on Friday, gutters were cleared, and in the end, for most suburbs of Melbourne it didn’t amount to much more than, well, some rain.

But try telling someone sandbagging their house in Euroa today that the Bureau of Meteorology overreacted. Or a farmer in the Wimmera who worked all night to harvest crops that might otherwise have been wiped out by the 40 odd millimetres the region was hit with between Friday and today. Or the folk of Myrtleford who are right now making decisions about whether to stay or go and finding out where the nearest relief centres are.

Meanwhile Melburnians are complaining about their disappointment in not seeing something a bit more exciting. Apparently we want our roofs ripped off or our money back.

If I do my job like weather forecasters did, I wouldn't have a job. No idea. #MelbourneStorm

— Leigh Corrigan (@leighcorrigan3) December 2, 2017

@BOM_Vic Apologies to everyone in NE Victoria on behalf of everyone in Melbourne... 😔 We've all been doing rain dances & you're all evacuating your homes... ⛈⛈⛈☔😕 #vicfloods #melbournestorm

— 💞Renee💞 (@Renoir04) December 2, 2017

I’m not a weather expert. I’m not even a weather enthusiast, but I suspect meteorology is one of the most inexact of sciences. I can’t conceive of the number of variables BOM has to calculate to come up with something even vaguely accurate.

On Thursday BOM forecaster Scott Williams remarked on the impending then-apocalypse “Half the inhabitants of Melbourne have probably never seen something like this”.

It was an attention grabbing comment, and judging by the light traffic around Melbourne on Friday, one that people took to heart.

And it must be galling to be the organiser of an event who made the decision to cancel, only to discover the show could probably have gone on.

But where would you rather live?

A country where a weather bureau elects to take a punt and issue lukewarm advice on the off-chance a storm will miss a major city, or one where they decide when it comes to human life and safety, it’s best to look at the worse case scenario and give people as much warning as possible.

I know what my answer is.

Claire Sutherland is the acting editor of RendezView.com.au.

@brolga2