Forums > Windsurfing General

New BOM web site ... not a fan

Reply
Created by stehsegler 1 month ago, 21 Oct 2025
stehsegler
WA, 3542 posts
21 Oct 2025 11:29PM
Thumbs Up

New BOM website launches 22/10/25. Lates beta version is here: beta.bom.gov.au/

From the little time I have spent in the site it seems a step backwards. Meteye wingdforecasts are not granular enough to consider local variations in wind speeds based. In the old Meteye it was possible to zoom in twice as far as it possible in the new site. For places like Sydney or Perth the map based wind forecast is now useless in my opinion. There are also big variation between say Northern Beach and Botany Bay / Cronulla. The same in Perth. It's near impossible to see those reflected in the new design.

Also the text based forecasts are near impossible to find from the homepage.

Overall this feels more like a copy of the weather apps for mobile platforms rather than utility like approach the old site had.

AI.Dave
TAS, 97 posts
22 Oct 2025 7:10AM
Thumbs Up

its a bit clunky isnt it, especially compared to windy and the commercial apps.

but 3 big improvements which make it gold compared to the apps
- 7 day hourly forecast
- 4 forecast updates per day
- wind observations that havent been averaged or mucked around with

Also I find BOM and its ACCESS and ACCESS-C forecasts the most accurate for tassie.

ACCESS-C is a 2 day high resolution forecast which will let you see local variations. You can see it on windy.com, just change the forecast model.. Way better to look at than meteye





stehsegler
WA, 3542 posts
22 Oct 2025 8:05AM
Thumbs Up

Do you have a link that explains what models are being used where?

AI.Dave
TAS, 97 posts
22 Oct 2025 6:25PM
Thumbs Up

You have to look around in each app to find out what they use
ECWMF is pretty common and gives a good forecast for 7-10 days but I reckon ACCESS-G and ACCESS-C are the best ones for Australia, or at least Tas. They use more local observations and latest high tech maths stuff.

AI.Dave
TAS, 97 posts
22 Oct 2025 6:28PM
Thumbs Up

Compare Forecasts in windy is worth a look
www.windy.com/





ptsf1111
WA, 454 posts
22 Oct 2025 6:34PM
Thumbs Up

The new website was in beta for over a year allowing you to test it and provide feedback.

Anyway, heaps of alternatives if you don't like it.

Mr Milk
NSW, 3110 posts
23 Oct 2025 9:43AM
Thumbs Up

My bookmarks for Meteye and latest observations weren't working properly yesterday for a while, while they were doing the upgrade, but they are back and working as usual. The only one lost is the local rain radar

ptsf1111
WA, 454 posts
23 Oct 2025 8:39AM
Thumbs Up

Same with local rain radar. Go to the forecast for your location and bookmark that page. It has the rain radar preloaded with your location on the page. The regular radar page doesn't seem to support storing the location yet.

On a large screen, the website really feels like a stretched out mobile website. I do get the mobile-first approach, but it would be good to have a view that is more optimised for larger screens as well as it's not using the available screen estate whatsoever.

westozwind
WA, 1415 posts
23 Oct 2025 11:42AM
Thumbs Up

Go here to go old skool.

reg.bom.gov.au/

stehsegler
WA, 3542 posts
23 Oct 2025 12:23PM
Thumbs Up

Select to expand quote
ptsf1111 said..
The new website was in beta for over a year allowing you to test it and provide feedback.

Anyway, heaps of alternatives if you don't like it.


I looked at the beta a few times over the past year and send some feedback. It hasn't really changed much since the first beta was released.

stehsegler
WA, 3542 posts
23 Oct 2025 12:26PM
Thumbs Up

Select to expand quote
westozwind said..
Go here to go old skool.

reg.bom.gov.au/


I think this is keep intact because some of the content hasn't been migrated across to the new design yet. Some links deeper in the new site still point back at pages inside the old site.

ptsf1111
WA, 454 posts
23 Oct 2025 3:25PM
Thumbs Up

Select to expand quote
stehsegler said..

I looked at the beta a few times over the past year and send some feedback. It hasn't really changed much since the first beta was released.


Agree and same here

mathew
QLD, 2133 posts
24 Oct 2025 10:37AM
Thumbs Up

I think the BoM team didn't eat-dog-food.

There are many basic software engineering choices that they didn't (refused ?) to implement... I wont list them all, just highlight one -> they didn't even implement a DNS redirect for bom.gov.au .*sigh*

I will add ... this is the same BoM that wanted everyone to call them "The Bureau" ... which appears to take some of the negative hints from the movie "The Adjustment Bureau".

stehsegler
WA, 3542 posts
24 Oct 2025 11:13AM
Thumbs Up

Select to expand quote
mathew said..
There are many basic software engineering choices that they didn't (refused ?) to implement... I wont list them all, just highlight one -> they didn't even implement a DNS redirect for bom.gov.au .*sigh*


Don't get me started on this. One of my biggest pet hates when it comes to site setups and the first thing I usually fix when I start working on a companies site.

tbwonder
NSW, 730 posts
24 Oct 2025 2:28PM
Thumbs Up

My local forecast area
Left side the old Meteye that according to the BOM needed an update. Right side the new improved 'Fresh look'


AI.Dave
TAS, 97 posts
24 Oct 2025 3:38PM
Thumbs Up

what a mess

Jump onto windy - same BOM forecasts but on a site which doesnt look like it was made in the 90's

Also monday arvo looking solid for you guys





stehsegler
WA, 3542 posts
25 Oct 2025 3:14PM
Thumbs Up

Select to expand quote
westozwind said..
Go here to go old skool.

reg.bom.gov.au/


Meteye on this site no longer works.

stehsegler
WA, 3542 posts
25 Oct 2025 3:16PM
Thumbs Up

Select to expand quote
tbwonder said..
My local forecast area
Left side the old Meteye that according to the BOM needed an update. Right side the new improved 'Fresh look'



These two screen shots illustrate is perfectly. Left was simple and easy to understand. Together with Seabreeze forecast it allowed to predict conditions for a specific spot really well. The new version is completely useless.

stehsegler
WA, 3542 posts
25 Oct 2025 3:18PM
Thumbs Up

Select to expand quote
AI.Dave said..
what a mess

Jump onto windy - same BOM forecasts but on a site which doesnt look like it was made in the 90's

Also monday arvo looking solid for you guys






While I like the site I find there is too much complexity compared to the old Meteye site.

Mr Milk
NSW, 3110 posts
25 Oct 2025 11:57PM
Thumbs Up

Select to expand quote
stehsegler said..

westozwind said..
Go here to go old skool.

reg.bom.gov.au/



Meteye on this site no longer works.


It wasn't working for a while earlier but it was a few minutes ago. That's the same as it used to be - intermittent outages

sboardcrazy
NSW, 8224 posts
26 Oct 2025 12:21PM
Thumbs Up

Select to expand quote
stehsegler said..
New BOM website launches 22/10/25. Lates beta version is here: beta.bom.gov.au/

From the little time I have spent in the site it seems a step backwards. Meteye wingdforecasts are not granular enough to consider local variations in wind speeds based. In the old Meteye it was possible to zoom in twice as far as it possible in the new site. For places like Sydney or Perth the map based wind forecast is now useless in my opinion. There are also big variation between say Northern Beach and Botany Bay / Cronulla. The same in Perth. It's near impossible to see those reflected in the new design.

Also the text based forecasts are near impossible to find from the homepage.

Overall this feels more like a copy of the weather apps for mobile platforms rather than utility like approach the old site had.



You can still give feedback. A box comes up if you go to a location to look at the hourly predictions.
I might link to this post??

sboardcrazy
NSW, 8224 posts
26 Oct 2025 12:29PM
Thumbs Up

I tried but it wouldn't accept the link due to symbols..you can tell them in 150 words or less..

WindmanV
VIC, 788 posts
26 Oct 2025 5:46PM
Thumbs Up

Meteye now working in Vic.

Suggest try in your state.

busterwa
3782 posts
26 Oct 2025 9:13PM
Thumbs Up

Un readable absolute sh1te Government job contracted the job lowest quote.Are they taking the piss there is alot of emergency services that rely on this, EPIC fail.. My asshole leaks retarded jizz. Site is proper ****ed.

mathew
QLD, 2133 posts
27 Oct 2025 9:06AM
Thumbs Up

... at least for now you can still go directly to the old meteye site: www.bom.gov.au/australia/meteye/

Comparing the zoomed-in view for the wind map for Port Philip Bay on Meteye vs the new implementation -> my experience of the wind forecasting was the old view was quite accurate for the predicted locations shown at max-zoom. The new site cannot zoom-in that far, thus hiding or limiting its predictions. Therefore the old view is clearly more useful for scenario.


... it appears the BoM are specifically trying to make the website be second-class vs other websites. This is a disservice, given we pay for it with our taxes.

ausbinny
191 posts
28 Oct 2025 6:35AM
Thumbs Up

Select to expand quote
busterwa said..
Un readable absolute sh1te Government job contracted the job lowest highest quote.Are they taking the piss there is alot of emergency services that rely on this, EPIC fail.. My asshole leaks retarded jizz. Site is proper ****ed.

westozwind
WA, 1415 posts
29 Oct 2025 9:12AM
Thumbs Up

Seems the minister is now involved.
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-29/bureau-of-meteorology-ordered-to-fix-website-after-backlash/105945832

Let's see how it goes.

stehsegler
WA, 3542 posts
29 Oct 2025 9:49AM
Thumbs Up

The real worry is that they paid $4.1 million for the redevelopment. From what I read a lot of the money went to two of the big 4 consulting firms for UX design. How did they manage to screw that up so badly? Every article I read instantly points out the same problems I outlined earlier. Even worse it looks like a lot of people, like myself, submitted feedback to their beta site when it was launched a year ago pointing out the problems then.

Perhaps time to start awarding contracts to smaller companies who's survival depends on delivering a successful project.

westozwind
WA, 1415 posts
29 Oct 2025 10:17AM
Thumbs Up

The big 4 have Canberra in a squirrel grip. If you want to stuff something up properly, use them.
$4m is nothing.
www.afr.com/politics/federal/the-340m-government-it-disaster-no-one-cared-about-20240821-p5k414

jn1
SA, 2627 posts
30 Oct 2025 9:44PM
Thumbs Up

Thanks for the windy.com link Dave. I'm now using it as a primary source due to BoM's s*** web site.

This fiasco has turned into a turducken bin fire. I've got all the old web links (synoptic, rain fall etc) in my favorites so they are 1 click away. Hopefully they keep these legacy pages going.

And while they are at it, fix our two main weather stations in Adelaide: Airport and Blackpole. Black pole has been ****ed for a few years. It only works for a few months of the year then goes down for the rest. Airport has been down for a month.

www.seabreeze.com.au/weather/wind-forecast/adelaide

Some operations supervisor with blue hair is probably whining to a panel why they won't sign off on somebody climbing a ladder anymore, or sailing out to clean shag s*** off a solar panel when its not calm wind. I doubt very much this is a technical cause.

I'm glad this department has turned into a high visibility national embarrassment. Burn baby burn.. . Interesting how the old CEO ended his tenure just before it blew up huge.



Subscribe
Reply

Forums > Windsurfing General


"New BOM web site ... not a fan" started by stehsegler