Bureau of Meteorology

History

Establishment

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 (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.

Reorganisation and expansion

The 1906 act governing the Bureau was repealed and replaced by the Meteorology Act 1955, which brought its functions in line with the expectations of the WMO and allowed for a significant reorganisation of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. 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. The BOM also gained additional responsibilities under the Water Act 2007 as the custodian of the nation's water information.

Twenty-first century

In October 2022, the BOM 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. The decision was reversed that week. 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 BOM employees at the time requested not to have their name used during live media crosses as a safety precaution. The style guide change was unclear as to whether the BOM also wanted the public to stop calling them the "BOM".

On 22 October 2025, the BOM released an updated website for the first time in 12 years with a new design and functionality, including https; however, it caused a public backlash mainly due to changes in navigation and the radar display. The change was described by some as "confusing", "clunky" and "really bad." 7News weather presenter Tony Auden said of the changes to the radar: "While it's never been properly defined, we’ve always had a rule of thumb that black on the radar means hail, and it's worked pretty well over the years...The new BOM radar view has essentially clipped the top end of the radar scale at orange, so we can't see any detail in the biggest storms ... This left a lot of people in the dark about the threat to their homes during the height of the severe weather yesterday.”

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli said "the changes to the website don't make sense", while federal Nationals leader David Littleproud said people in his rural Queensland electorate “were not given the information they needed after the recent rain event”. On 29 October, the federal Environment Minister Murray Watt and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said the bureau had lost its social licence because of the website upgrade and demanded urgent changes. Watt wrote in a statement: "It’s clear that the new BOM website is not meeting many users' expectations, with a significant range of feedback provided to the Bureau in recent days ... I made clear my expectations that the BoM needed to consider this feedback and, where appropriate, adjust the website's settings as soon as possible." Also on 29 October, the BOM apologised for the changes and said "adjustments" will be made. The re-design by Deloitte and the digital infrastructure by Accenture cost a total of $96.5 million, against an original budget of $31 million.