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The Bureau of Meteorology is changing its forecasts to improve public understanding amid a changing climate.
The public is now encouraged to follow its short- and long-term forecasts, not its outlook for climate indicators such as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation.
The bureau hopes the changes will improve the relevance and accuracy of its information.
Climate Manager Dr Karl Braganza said as the climate changes, historical experience is less aligned to the present and future climate.
He says old methods of prediction have become less reliable while new models based on current information are a more reliable way to help the public and industry best plan for seasonal trends.
“We are moving away from focusing on individual environmental phenomena,” he says.
“In a changing climate it is more difficult to make predictions based on events when they are looked at individually – climate systems are complex and cannot be explained by just one influencing factor.”
He says the bureau’s regularly-updated 90-day forecasts are the best guide for the public regarding likely rainfall and temperature for the months ahead.
The bureau says its long-range forecasts are based on a physics-based model which has been consistently improved over the past 10 years.
This model considers current atmospheric and oceanic data, including ever-changing greenhouse gas concentrations, and uses physics to produce its forecasts.
It inputs the most up-to-date data, keeping track of changes in the ocean and atmosphere that influence seasonal weather.
The bureau’s information on conditions, including all relevant data on climate indicators, will be published on new Southern Hemisphere monitoring and outlook web pages.
NEW APP FUNCTION
The bureau also introduced a warnings map layer in its BOM Weather app, providing communities with a clear view of current weather warnings during severe weather.
The map layer will include 10 different weather warnings; coastal hazards, fire weather, flood, hazardous surf, heatwave, marine wind, severe thunderstorms, severe weather, tropical cyclone and tsunami.
A bureau spokeswoman says to access the app, people need to update or install the latest version which will work on all supported operating systems.
“This new feature is in addition to the other ways of keeping track of warnings in the app – users with warning notifications set up will continue to get those, and you can always navigate to the Warnings tab to view Australia-wide warnings as well,” she says.
