The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM or BoM) is an executive agency of the Australian Government responsible for providing weather services to Australia and surrounding areas. It was established in 1906 under the Meteorology Act, and brought together the state meteorological services that existed before then. The states officially transferred their weather recording responsibilities to the Bureau of Meteorology on 1 January 1908.

History

The Bureau of Meteorology was established on 1 January 1908 following the passage of the ''Meteorology Act 1906''. 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. 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 "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...

(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. The 1906 act governing the bureau was repealed and replaced by the ''Meteorology Act 1955'', which brought its functions in line with the expectations of the WMO and allowed for a significant reorganisation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 The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...

. In 1957, partly as a response to the

1955 Hunter Valley floods The Hunter Valley Floods (also known as the Maitland Flood) of 23 February 1955 was a major flood on the Hunter River in New South Wales, Australia. They were one of the most devastating natural disasters in Australia's history. The flood over ...

, the bureau added a hydrometeorological service. 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. In October 2022, the bureau asked media organizations to update their style guides so that they were no longer referred to as "BOM" or the "Weather Bureau". The decision was reversed that week.

Services and structure

The Bureau of Meteorology is the main provider of weather forecasts, warnings and observations to the Australian public. The bureau distributes weather images via radiofax and is responsible for issuing

flood alerts Flood alerts are issued by weather agencies to alert residents that flood conditions are a possibility. Types of flood alerts in the United States In the United States, a flash flood watch is issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) when ...

in Australia. The bureau's head office is in Melbourne Docklands, which includes the bureau's Research Centre, the Bureau National Operations Centre, the National Climate Centre, the Victorian Regional Forecasting Centre as well as the Hydrology and Satellite sections. Regional offices are located in each state and territory capital. Each regional office includes a regional forecasting centre and a flood warning centre. The Adelaide office incorporates the

National Tidal Centre The National Operations Centre Tidal Unit (formerly known as the National Tidal Centre) is a group of experts responsible for providing tidal tables and tidal predictions to the Australian Hydrographic Service. Their tidal predictions are also publ ...

, while the Darwin office the

Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre A Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) is a group of experts responsible for coordinating and disseminating information on atmospheric volcanic ash clouds that may endanger aviation. As at 2019, there are nine Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers located a ...

and Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre (Analysis). The Perth,

Darwin Darwin may refer to: Common meanings * Charles Darwin (1809–1882), English naturalist and writer, best known as the originator of the theory of biological evolution by natural selection * Darwin, Northern Territory, a territorial capital city i ...

and Brisbane offices also housed

Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre A Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre (RSMC) is responsible for the distribution of information, advisories, and warnings regarding the specific program they have a part of, agreed by consensus at the World Meteorological Organization as ...

s which were ultimately unified into one since the 2020–21 cyclone season. Darwin Airport Met Office

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology issues Tropical Cyclone Advices and developed the

Standard Emergency Warning Signal The Standard Emergency Warning Signal (SEWS) is a warning siren used in Australia to alert the public of danger. The siren is played over radio, television or public address systems in public places to warn of bushfire, flood, cyclone, tsunami, e ...

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. 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 Tropical cyclones and subtropical cyclones are named by various warning centers to simplify communication between forecasters and the general public regarding forecasts, watches and warnings. The names are intended to reduce confusion in th ...

. The regional offices are supported by the

Bureau National Operations Centre Bureau ( ) may refer to: Agencies and organizations *Government agency *Public administration * News bureau, an office for gathering or distributing news, generally for a given geographical location * Bureau (European Parliament), the administra ...

(BNOC) which is also located at the head office in Melbourne Docklands. The bureau maintains a network of field offices across the continent, on neighbouring islands and in Antarctica. There is also a network of some 500 paid co-operative observers and approximately 6,000 voluntary rainfall observers. The Bureau of Meteorology has been accused of being influenced by oil and gas giants such as Santos, Chevron and

Woodside Woodside may refer to: Places and buildings Australia *Woodside, South Australia, a town *Woodside, Victoria, a town Canada *Woodside National Historic Site, the boyhood home of William Lyon Mackenzie King *Woodside, Nova Scotia, a neighborho ...

to downplay the effects of climate change to please their leaders. Sentences in the Bureau's report on the

2019–20 Australian bushfire season The 201920 Australian bushfire season (Black Summer), was a period of bushfires in many parts of Australia, which, due to its unusual intensity, size, duration, and uncontrollable dimension, is considered a megafire. The Australian National ...

were censored and/or modified to remove references to climate change and long-term warming trends.

Directors

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

Technology

In the head office a

Cray XC40 The Cray XC40 is a massively parallel multiprocessor supercomputer manufactured by Cray. It consists of Intel Haswell Xeon processors, with optional Nvidia Tesla or Intel Xeon Phi accelerators, connected together by Cray's proprietary "A ...

supercomputer called "Australis" provides the operational computing capability for weather, climate, ocean and wave numerical prediction and simulation, while other Unix servers support the computer message switching system and real-time data base. The Australian Integrated Forecast System affords the main computing infrastructure in the regional offices. Numerical weather prediction is performed using the Unified Model software. The Bureau of Meteorology announced the Cray contract in July 2015, commissioned the Cray XC40 supercomputer on 30 June 2016 and decommissioned their Oracle HPC system in October 2016.

References

External links