Bureau of Meteorology

Australian government agency responsible for providing meteorology services

Bureau of Meteorology

Agency overview
Formed| 1 January 1908; 117 years ago (1908-01-01)
Jurisdiction| Government of Australia
Headquarters| Melbourne
Employees| 1,500[1]
Annual budget| A$420.6M total, A$335.2M of that coming from the government,[which?] and A$85.4M from sales of goods and rendering of services. (2022–23)[2]
Minister responsible|

* Senator The Hon Murray Watt, Minister for the Environment and Water

Agency executive|

* Andrew Johnson, CEO and Director of Meteorology

Parent department| Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
Website| www.bom.gov.au

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM or BoM) is an agency of the Australian Government that is responsible for providing weather forecasts and meteorological services to Australia and neighbouring countries. It was established in 1906 under the Meteorology Act (Cth), and brought together the state meteorological services that existed before then.[3][4] The states officially transferred their weather recording responsibilities to the Bureau of Meteorology on 1 January 1908.[5][6]

## History

[edit]

The Bureau of Meteorology was established on 1 January 1908 following the passage of the Meteorology Act 1906.[7] Prior to Federation in 1901, each colony had had its own meteorological service, with all but two colonies also having a subsection devoted to astronomy. In August 1905, federal home affairs minister Littleton Groom surveyed state governments for their willingness to cede control, finding South Australia and Victoria unwilling. However, at a ministerial conference in April 1906, the state governments agreed to transfer responsibility for meteorology and astronomy to the federal government. Groom rejected a takeover of astronomy due to its connection to universities, which relied on state legislation for their authority.[8]

Henry Ambrose Hunt was appointed as the first Commonwealth Meteorologist in November 1906. Initially, the Bureau had few staff and issued a single daily forecast for each state, transmitted by Morse code to country areas. Radio forecasts were introduced in 1924. The Bureau received additional funding from the late 1930s, in the lead-up to World War II, and it was incorporated into the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) from 1941 until after the conclusion of the war. It became an inaugural member of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1950. Televised weather forecasts were introduced in 1956.[9]

The 1906 act governing the Bureau was repealed and replaced by the Meteorology Act 1955, which brought its functions in line with the expectations of the WMO and allowed for a significant reorganisation of its structure. At this time, the Bureau came under the Department of the Interior. In 1957, partly as a response to the 1955 Hunter Valley floods, the Bureau added a hydrometeorological service.[10] In 1964, the federal government agreed to establish one of the three World Meteorological Centres in Melbourne, as part of the WMO's World Weather Watch scheme.[11] The Bureau also gained additional responsibilities under the Water Act 2007 as the custodian of the nation's water information[12].

In October 2022, the Bureau requested media organisations and outlets to update their style guides so that the agency was to be referred to as the "Bureau of Meteorology" in the first instance and "the Bureau" in subsequent professional references, in line with other governmental agencies and the Meteorology Act 1955. [13] The decision was reversed that week.[14] During this period, the media cycle on this story led to death threats sent from the public to the organisation and were received by general staff, scientists, meteorologists, and other specialists within the organisation, those of which had no input or were a part of the request. Some Bureau employees at the time requested not to have their name used during live media crosses as a safety precaution.[15] The style guide change requested was directed at professional news organisations and media outlets, but was misconstrued and the general public, who colloquially refer to the Bureau as "the BOM", believed it was referring to them.[13]

## Services and structure

[edit]

Further information: List of Bureau of Meteorology weather radars

Mildura radar © Bureau of Meteorology

The Bureau of Meteorology is the main provider of weather forecasts, warnings and observations to the Australian public.

The Bureau's head office had traditionally been in Melbourne since its creation in 1908. Since 2020, the Bureau has restructured its operations and moved to a more distributed staffing arrangement with functions spread over its capital city offices. The current Melbourne office at 700 Collins Street in Melbourne Docklands[16] was established in 2004 and remains its largest staffed office.

Offices are located in each state and territory capital as well as offices in Cairns and Townsville. Specialist functions such as Regional Forecasting Centres (RFCs), Flood Warning Centres, the National Tidal Centre, the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre, the Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre (Analysis), Bureau National Operations Centre (BNOC) and the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centres have been reorganised and distributed across the Bureau's offices with a major concentration of forecasting operations in Brisbane and Melbourne Docklands. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology issues tropical cyclone advices[17] and developed the Standard Emergency Warning Signal used for warnings. The Bureau is responsible for tropical cyclone naming for storms in waters surrounding Australia. Three lists of names used to be maintained, one for each of the western, northern and eastern Australian regions.[18] However, as of the start of the 2008–09 Tropical Cyclone Year these lists have been rolled into one main national list of tropical cyclone names.[18]

The Bureau maintained a network of field offices across the continent but has generally de-staffed these facilities,[19] except at capital city airports, Giles Meteorological Station,[20] on remote overseas islands, and in Antarctica. Capital city airport offices are scheduled for automation by 2027.[21] In 2011 there was also a network of some 300 paid co-operative observers and approximately 6,000 voluntary rainfall observers,[22] though this number is expected to have reduced over time with increased automation. In 2022 the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) produced an audit report entitled "Bureau of Meteorology's Management of Assets in its Observing Network".[23]

The Bureau of Meteorology has been accused of being influenced by oil and gas giants such as Santos, Chevron and Woodside to downplay the effects of climate change to "please their leaders". Sentences in the Bureau's report on the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season were censored and/or modified to remove references to climate change and long-term warming trends.[24][undue weight? - discuss] Additionally, staff time and supercomputer modelling resources[25] were regularly directed from core services to supporting commercial offshore oil and gas ventures outside of appropriate commercial fee-for-service arrangements[26] at below-cost, given the significant expense[27] of running the resources.

In March 2025, research from Pollster DemosAU identified the Bureau of Meteorology as Australia's most trusted national institution, ahead of the CSIRO, the Australian Electoral Commission and others.[28]

## Directors

[edit]

The following people have been directors of the Bureau of Meteorology:

* 1908–1931: Henry Ambrose Hunt
* 1931–1940: William S Watt
* 1940–1950: H. Norman Warren
* 1950–1955: Edward W Timcke
* 1955–1962: Leonard J Dwyer
* 1962–1978: William J Gibbs
* 1978–2003: John Zillman
* 2003–2008: Geoff Love
* 2008–2009: Neville Smith (Acting Director)
* 2009–2012: Greg Ayers[29]
* 2012–2016: Rob Vertessy[30]
* 2016–present: Andrew Johnson[31]

## High performance computing

[edit]

On 30 June 2016, a new Cray XC40 supercomputer was put into service by the Bureau. It was named Australis and it was expected to be 16 times faster than the existing High Performance Computer (HPC) with a total of 1.6 petaflops of computational power,[32] providing the operational computing capability for weather, climate, ocean and wave numerical prediction and simulation. The Bureau performs numerical weather prediction with the Unified Model software.

The Bureau decommissioned their old Oracle system in October 2016. In 2020, the Bureau decommissioned the central computing facility, which had previously been relocated to the Melbourne office in 2004, and was first commissioned in 1974. In April 2020, the Bureau received Australis II, a 4.0 petaflop Cray XC50 and CS500 system, which was expected to be operational in August 2024 after several lengthy delays.[33][needs update]

Two years later, the Bureau bought a disaster recovery (DR) HPC system to improve the resilience of the supercomputer used to predict Australia’s weather events. Hewlett Packard Enterprise will supply the DR HPC system under a three-year contract worth A$49.3 million, supplementing the existing Australis II.[34][needs update]

## See also

[edit]

* World Meteorological Organization, co-ordination body for weather, climate and environment services
* International Cloud Experiment, which collected data on tropical cyclones in January and February 2006
* 2025–26 Australian region cyclone season
* Water Data Transfer Format
* National Council for Fire & Emergency Services

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "About the Bureau". bom.gov.au. Archived from the original on 20 March 2021. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
2. ^ "Portfolio budget statements 2022-23 budget related paper no. 1.3" (PDF). Transparency.gov.au. Australian Government. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 April 2023. Retrieved 21 April 2023.
3. ^ "Meteorology in the 20th Century". Federation and Meteorology. University of Melbourne: Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre. August 2001. p. 1600\. Archived from the original on 14 March 2019. Retrieved 28 March 2019.
4. ^ Day, David (2007). The Weather Watchers. Melbourne University Publishing. ISBN 9780522852752.
5. ^ "BOM celebrates 100 years". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 31 December 2007. Archived from the original on 5 November 2012. Retrieved 1 January 2008.
6. ^ "Collections in Perth: 20. Meteorology". National Archives of Australia. Archived from the original on 12 February 2012. Retrieved 24 May 2008.
7. ^ "A short history of the Bureau of Meteorology". Bureau of Meteorology. 24 August 2011. Archived from the original on 24 July 2021. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
8. ^ Carment, David (1975). Australian liberal: a political biography of Sir Littleton Groom, 1867-1936 (PDF) (PhD thesis). Australian National University. pp. 54–55\. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 July 2021. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
9. ^ "Meteorology in Australia". Year Book Australia, 1988. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Archived from the original on 24 July 2021. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
10. ^ "The Meteorology Act 1955". Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre. 2001. Archived from the original on 24 July 2021. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
11. ^ "World Meteorological Centre, Melbourne". Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre. 2001. Archived from the original on 24 July 2021. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
12. ^ "Water Act 2007". Bureau of Meteorology. Retrieved 29 April 2025.
13. ^ a b "Bureau of Meteorology asks to stop being called 'BOM'". ABC News. 18 October 2022. Retrieved 18 October 2022.
14. ^ "'The Bureau of Management': Former staff say cultural issues behind Bureau of Meteorology's 'nonsense' rebrand". ABC News. 20 October 2022. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
15. ^ "BOM boss apologises for confusion surrounding its 'brand refresh'". ABC News. 28 October 2022. Retrieved 26 September 2023.
16. ^ "Bureau of Meteorology Head Office 700 Collins Street". Bureau of Meteorology. Archived from the original on 11 April 2020. Retrieved 24 May 2008.
17. ^ Tropical Cyclone Advices Archived 11 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Bureau of Meteorology, 2009
18. ^ a b "Tropical Cyclone Names". Bureau of Meteorology. Archived from the original on 11 April 2015. Retrieved 8 August 2008.
19. ^ "BOM's last outback Queensland weather bureau closes". ABC News. 1 June 2017. Retrieved 29 April 2025.
20. ^ "Just how isolated this weather station is takes some explaining. But that's not what makes it unique". ABC News. 8 July 2023. Retrieved 12 May 2025.
21. ^ "Automation of Aerodrome Observations". www.bom.gov.au. Archived from the original on 23 January 2025. Retrieved 12 May 2025.
22. ^ "A short history of the Bureau of Meteorology - Social Media Blog - Bureau of Meteorology". media.bom.gov.au. Retrieved 29 April 2025.
23. ^ "Bureau of Meteorology's Management of Assets in its Observing Network, Auditor-General Report No.21 of 2024-25". Australian National Audit Office. 29 April 2025.
24. ^ "Undue Influence: oil and gas giants infiltrate Australia's Bureau of Meteorology". Michael West Media. 6 December 2020. Archived from the original on 20 October 2021. Retrieved 25 November 2021.
25. ^ Hall, Bradley. "Use of ensembles in the energy and resource sector forecasts" (PDF). Bureau of Meteorology. Bureau of Meteorology. Retrieved 11 July 2025.
26. ^ Morton, Rick. "Exclusive: BoM staff redirected to work for fossil fuel companies". The Saturday Paper. Retrieved 11 July 2025.
27. ^ Hendry, Justin. "BOM buys $49m disaster recovery HPC system from HPE". IT News. www.itnews.com.au. Retrieved 11 July 2025.
28. ^ "Australia's Most Trusted Institutions: BoM, CSIRO, AEC". demosau.com. 12 March 2025. Retrieved 12 March 2025.
29. ^ "Government thanks outgoing Bureau of Meteorology director, Dr Greg Ayers". Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. 20 February 2012. Archived from the original on 27 February 2012. Retrieved 23 February 2012.
30. ^ "'Perilous': Bureau of Meteorology boss Rob Vertessy exits with climate warning". The Sydney Morning Herald. 30 April 2016. Archived from the original on 4 June 2016. Retrieved 30 May 2016.
31. ^ "Dr Andrew Johnson appointed as Director of Meteorology". Bureau of Meteorology. 5 September 2016. Archived from the original on 23 September 2016. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
32. ^ Hendry, Justin. "BOM buys $49m disaster recovery HPC system from HPE". iTnews. Retrieved 21 April 2023.
33. ^ Morton, Rick (8 June 2024). "Inside the Bureau of Meteorology's forecast failings". The_Saturday_Paper. Archived from the original on 23 August 2024. Retrieved 23 August 2024. Alt URL
34. ^ Hendry, Justin. "Bureau of Meteorology shuts oldest data centre after 46 years". iTnews. Retrieved 21 April 2023.

## External links

[edit]

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* Federation and Meteorology: the history of meteorology in Australia

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