The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM or BoM) is an executive agency of the

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government i ...

responsible for providing weather services to Australia and surrounding areas. It was established in 1906 under the Meteorology Act, and brought together the

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

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 A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...

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 Sir Littleton Ernest Groom KCMG KC (22 April 18676 November 1936) was an Australian politician. He held ministerial office under four prime ministers between 1905 and 1925, and subsequently served as Speaker of the House of Representatives fr ...

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 Henry Ambrose Hunt (7 February 1866 – 7 February 1946) was a British meteorologist noted for his contribution to meteorology in his adopted home of Australia. He was Director of the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia), Australian Bureau of Meteor ...

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 The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. The WMO originated from the Internati ...

(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. 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 Hydrometeorology is a branch of meteorology and hydrology that studies the transfer of water and energy between the land surface and the lower atmosphere. Hydrologists often use data provided by meteorologists. As an example, a meteorologist might ...

service. In 1964, the federal government agreed to establish one of the three World Meteorological Centres in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, 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 forecast Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the conditions of the atmosphere for a given location and time. People have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia and formally since the 19th cent ...

s, warnings and observations to the Australian public. The bureau distributes weather images via

radiofax Radiofacsimile, radiofax or HF fax is an analogue mode for transmitting monochrome images via high frequency (HF) radio waves. It was the predecessor to slow-scan television (SSTV). It was the primary method of sending photographs from remote s ...

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 weat ...

in Australia. The bureau's head office is in

Melbourne Docklands Docklands, also known as Melbourne Docklands, is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne local government area. Docklands recorded a population ...

, 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 Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

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 pub ...

, 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 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 p ...

(Analysis). The

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, Darwin and

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

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 p ...

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 A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...

Advices and developed the Standard Emergency Warning Signal used for warnings. The bureau is responsible for

tropical cyclone naming 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 the ...

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 the ...

. The regional offices are supported by the Bureau National Operations Centre (BNOC) which is also located at the head office in

. The bureau maintains a network of field offices across the continent, on neighbouring islands and in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

. 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 Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to: Science and technology * Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines * Chevron (anatomy), a bone * '' Eulithis testata'', a moth * Chevron (geology), a fold in rock ...

and Woodside to downplay the effects of

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

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 "Aries" ...

supercomputer called "Australis" provides the operational computing capability for weather, climate, ocean and wave numerical prediction and simulation, while other

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

servers support the computer

message switching In telecommunications, message switching involves messages routed in their entirety, one hop at a time. It evolved from circuit switching and was the precursor of packet switching. History Western Union operated a message switching system, Plan ...

system and

real-time data Real-time data (RTD) is information that is delivered immediately after collection. There is no delay in the timeliness of the information provided. Real-time data is often used for navigation or tracking. Such data is usually processed using real- ...

base. The

Australian Integrated Forecast System The Australian Integrated Forecast System (AIFS) is a UNIX and Linux -based processing, display, analysis and communications system for meteorological data. It incorporates facilities for the ingest and storage of meteorological and hydrologica ...

affords the main computing infrastructure in the regional offices.

Numerical weather prediction Numerical weather prediction (NWP) uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to predict the weather based on current weather conditions. Though first attempted in the 1920s, it was not until the advent of computer simulation in th ...

is performed using the

Unified Model The Unified Model is a numerical weather prediction and climate modeling software suite originally developed by the United Kingdom Met Office, and now both used and further developed by many weather-forecasting agencies around the world. The Unif ...

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