Thursday night we had a spectacular thunderstorm. It happened near sunset, so the thunderclouds got flushed with red from the setting sun, and there was a catastrophic, end-of-days feel to it all. The high-volume red spot rain cloud that went over us briefly dumped a LOT of rain, and the lightning strikes and thunder weren't that far from us.

We sat out on the verandah and watched it crash through. It was very entertaining ( for us, the dogs hated it). The only problem was none of it was predicted.

Around here its hay baling season. Incorrect rain predictions can be disastrous for getting a crop in. The BoM prediction for rain was nothing until Saturday, so you could easily have hay either drying or in bales awaiting pickup in Thursday night, only to get a dump of rain. An incorrect prediction the other way is problematic too....if rain is coming on Tuesday you might hold off cutting until after it falls.. When it doesn't arrive it means you've missed half a week, and shunting everyone further down the queue. (As a result as at Dec 31 we still haven't had our hay cut. Its long past its peak and collapsing. Very disappointing)

A few weeks back we had five days of rain predicted. Its late in the year, getting hot, but I always have trees bursting out of pots that would be better in the ground. I don't do much planting this time of year though, as they would probably dry out and die even if I put a lot of effort into watering them. But, with five days rain they could get bedded in and might make it. In the end I didn't believe the prediction and didn't plant. We had no rain at all, and five hot days. All my saplings would have died. Imagine if I was putting in a crop with thousands of dollars worth of seed?

So I have been losing faith with the Bureau of Meteorology's predictions. It hasn't helped with the recent news coverage of the BoM apparently spending close to $100m on their website

I don't think the media have understood the project, or are deliberately misreporting it. I cannot believe the Bom has spent $100m revamping the interface. In a previous life I ran a redevelopment of some of the BoM website. I found them to be timid in terms of change, and penny-pinching in terms of costs. It was a long time ago, but I cannot believe that organization would spend that sort of money on development only.

So, what's wrong with the revamped site?

My main overall gripe is the change from succinct text-based information to vague info-graphic summaries. The seven day forecast has silly pictures of the sun behind a cloud as the forecast, versus a 50 word description. But the one that really fires me up is the changed rain radar. Previously I had a bookmarked map that was accurate enough to explain why it was raining across the road but not at my place. Now, the scale of zoom into the map is restricted, so that Eurobin, where we are, isn't even marked on the map!

New weather radar map doesn't even show Eurobin at maximum zoom.

On the old weather radar map, my exact location was the bottom left corner of the pixel/dot that marks Eurobin on the zoomed in map.

Its a shame, because the BoM should be leading the charge in terms of climate and weather reporting. I've started using other sites, like YR. I now rely on the local TAFCO weather station for live data as the live weather station is across the river from us....less than 1 kilometre. The Bureau's live data is usually actually Wangaratta's live data, which can be completely different to Eurobin.

Having said that, I still use the Bureau's rain record, which has been recorded across the road by a local family for decades. And the river height data is very accurate and local...saves me walking down to the river in filthy weather to check if the river is flooding.

You can still access the old BoM rain radar, via hacking the URL. I'll do that until they shut it down.