WEATHER forecasts have been all the talk this year, with plenty of discussion about a dry year ahead followed by widespread storms throughout November.
Many have argued the dull outlook and subsequent reporting of it has contributed to a loss of confidence in livestock markets – which have seen a significant rally since the rain.
South Australia Cattle Co managing director Timothy Burvill has been raising concerns about the Bureau of Meteorology’s forecasts throughout the year.
He stressed that he does not want to see BOM lose resources and the concerns raised were about making sure it is a good resource for the country.
Mr Burvill pointed to the forecast dry weather in June turning into an above average rainfall month and a similar situation in November.
“Many other forecasting services were predicting the November rain, but not BOM,” he said.
“Someone said the me the other day that ‘BOM couldn’t forecast a sunrise’ and I think it is terrible that we have a national agency losing the trust of the people it is set up for.”
Mr Burvill said he and a lot of producers he knows were using private forecasting apps for their weather information.
He posted on LinkedIn last week calling for a government review of the bureau, raising concerns that its forecasts had a negative bias.
“We have had situations where they are forecasting a dry month and there is a huge rain front on another of their forecasts,” he told Beef Central.
“With all their super computers, why are they not getting it right? Surely after the year they have had, it warrants some kind of review.
“The bureau has to be cognicent of the importance of their forecasting because it is a bigger issue for farmers than a lot of people realise.”
Beef Central contacted agriculture minister Murray Watt this afternoon to see if there was any appetite for a review of BOM, based on the concerns of producers. We will update this article with any response.
Value in forecasting classes
Central Queensland producer Melinee Leather has recently completed a climate mate forecasting workshop with the local Fitzroy Basin Association. She said she received most of her information from the BOM’s website.
“It was really good to learn what the forecasts mean and really understand what they are saying,” Ms Leather said.
“BOM is a really valuable tool and one of many we can use to manage our land.”
Ms Leather said sometimes there were issues with media interpretation of weather forecasts and the massaging from BOM.
“I think BOM is really good at forecasting, but it is not always good at communicating those forecasts,” she said.
“I have noticed they use wording to try and simplify the forecasts that actually them more complicated – which makes it more important for producers to get educated about weather forecasts.”
In the paddock – Whatever the BOM says, plan for the opposite. In the past decade, the BOM forecast has become the most ridiculed in the industry. It seems no matter what level of knowledge or complex computers this group has at its disposal, they leave the actual forecast up to out of date models and inexperienced staff. Many farmers are utilising corporate sites such as Higgins, AV Weather and Tims Weather etc as they actually know how to read the models and the signals. The real forecasters predicted this wet November, December and the following wet season 6 months ago, while the BOM predicted a dry el nino year, all disaster leading to mass sell offs and price slumps. Time for retraining the staff using the knowledge from the real weather forecasters in the corporate world.
Best to focus more on the legitimacy and capability of the software company which BOM outsources to supply the ‘modelling’ data. Think AI!
A case of “buyer be ware”.
Trying to predict the future is a risky & foolish notion. Basing business decisions on forecasts is simply gambling. Weather departments are really only useful for historical data to know what extremes & variation to prepare for, & 3-day outlooks.
The rest is a punter’s folly.
Hopefully our industry has learnt a lesson.
Well written article, I think you right , there running scared without a spot of confidence, so as to try and please everyone.
I am old enough to remember when computers became more common. There was a saying, “rubbish in, rubbish out”. That still applies with super computers. In addition, the Bom is more interested in “climate change” and that is possibly why its forecasts are often off the mark because that impacts the assumptions it writes into its forecasting.
Yes the BOM forecasts appear to have a negative bias and they appear reticent to admit they are wrong on a seasonal basis and change from their original prediction which adds to the inaccuracy of their forecasts. Weather information and reporting is now sensationalized to support the Climate Change Agenda and create headlines to support the path to renewables.
Spot on Tim. We can’t just sit back, there needs to be a review. Sick of the BOM making the excuse along the lines- oh no we got it right it was just interpreted wrong. Something has to change immediately.
Thanks Marc.
Yes, the BOM certainly likes using the line “Well, we forecasted a 25% chance of above median rainfall for the month, so technically our forecast was indeed correct.”
Based on that premise, any forecast the BOM gives above 0% is always correct. Which of course is just plain ridiculous.
Also worth noting – why does the BOM forecast in median rainfall and report in mean rainfall? I suspect the answer is that it makes it even more difficult to compare/review their forecasts with actual.
Regards
Tim
It seems to me the BOM is hardly worth feeding! If they don’t know what the weather is going to do they should not issue forecasts that cause farmers to make decisions with poor outcomes.
Absolutely they should be audited. They have a $300 million annual budget.
It has long been my belief that the BOM should collect the data set and sell it to private analysts. Who then get business based on the accuracy of their forecasts.
The government owned the data set and the interpretation of that data set is left to private enterprise. The person who gets it right gets the contracts to channel 7, 9, 10 etc and the farmers can pay a subscription to the person who is right for their region
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Hi Sam,
Great comments. Only thing I’d add to your comments is that their annual budget is $420 million, and not $300 million. So over $1 million per day.
Regards
Tim Burvill