So according to this article [1] the hundred million is for the renewal of the whole infrastructure including the supercomputer calculating the weather model. If this is true the supercomputer alone costs at least $10 - 20 million. This would make the cost a whole lot more reasonable.
In South Australia an algal bloom started in ~mid-March of this year, it's a pretty big ecological disaster, probably the worst non-bushfire disaster in living memory. Probably 30% of SA's coastline is affected. It's a pretty big deal affecting many people's livelihoods.
The joint state and federal government relief and cleanup package is worth AUD $102.5 million dollars.
I hope the public receives that comparison at every opportunity.
The old website was frankly excellent, the only problem was it didn't have HTTPS support. I would have happily upgraded that part of the system for the cost of a cup of coffee if I'd had an opportunity to submit for the tender!
The new website is significantly more difficult to navigate (for me, a seasoned tech user). The primary thing Dad's everywhere use it for (the weather radar) now requires scrolling to the _bottom_ of the page, and zooming in from the 'map of Australia' to the region you live in. It used to be like, a click to go from home page -> state weather radar with all the info you needed.
> [BOM] said the cost breakdown included $4.1 million for the redesign, $79.8 million for the website build, and the site's launch and security testing cost $12.6 million.
Absolutely stupid, even those numbers are outrageous. They say it's part of some 'larger upgrade package', prompted by a cyber attack in 2015.
But politicians over here love to blame cyber attacks when technical blunders happen. We had a census a couple years ago and the website fell over due to 'unprecedented load' or maybe it was a 'DDOS attack'? The news at the time couldn't decide who to blame!
Welp, I hope this gets as much world-wide attention as possible so they can be embarrassed and do better.
The painpoint for me has been the loss of information density. 99% of my use of the old BoM was the 7 day forecast showing rain and cloud: former for working outside, latter for photography jobs. Now, at about 800px or narrower the 7 day forecast loses the rain estimate, and all they manage to fit in is day, icon, min and max. The day name could be abbreviated, and the other elements are typically 30px wide. Having to expand each or all days to look for the rain estimate is thoroughly tedious.
Among the highlights of vertical space wastage are 130px for a cookie warning, 50px for "No warnings for this location" and then another 110px for heading a table with "7 day forecast" and "expand all". On a large phone screen, it leaves only about a third of the vertical spacing for starting content; the rest is site header and browser chrome!
I would have settled for https to redirect to http. Instead, it redirected to a generic page telling you they don't support https, with no way to get to the actual content.
>It's the government IT project equivalent of ordering a renovation, discovering the contractor has made your house less functional, and then learning they charged you for a mansion.
Or rather, it's you and your neighbours deciding to fix your house because it's an eyesore, but then you build a huge unpractical mansion for yourself on their expense.
If they hired 3 full time devs at 100k salary each to develop and maintain their website, it would take over 300 years to spend that much money... also unrelated but kind of related - australia spent i think it was over 300 billion for some subs that we'll never get. hot news, if you want free money from people who have no clue, go get it from australia! we are indeed a nation of stupid
Australians will sit and watch their health system shredded, multinationals running off with trillions in resources and pay zero tax/royalties, our poor quality housing and gridlocked cities rank amoungst the most expensive in the world, but will not tolerate anybody fucking with BOM.
Not a user of this site but a lesson for all techies about changing something which is heavily in use. Don't expect people to take to it immediately and provide some way to allow people to gradually transition.
The site itself looks clean and loads fast but people are complaining that they can't easily find information they used to be able to.
I think the lesson here is to get feedback early and often. Do an open beta from the start, or at least focus groups where regular members of the public can give opinions on the product as it evolves.
Indeed - this should've been easily possible by having a beta subdomain pointing to the new implementation and let people comment on it to get early feedback.
First I've heard of it. Might have helped to not just listen, but to actively advertise the beta via a link on the main website. Pretty standard practice.
So according to this article [1] the hundred million is for the renewal of the whole infrastructure including the supercomputer calculating the weather model. If this is true the supercomputer alone costs at least $10 - 20 million. This would make the cost a whole lot more reasonable.
[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-24/bom-website-approved-...
Discussion from the other day:
Bureau of Meteorology's new boss asked to examine $96M bill for website redesign | 119 points, 80 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46033435
In South Australia an algal bloom started in ~mid-March of this year, it's a pretty big ecological disaster, probably the worst non-bushfire disaster in living memory. Probably 30% of SA's coastline is affected. It's a pretty big deal affecting many people's livelihoods.
The joint state and federal government relief and cleanup package is worth AUD $102.5 million dollars.
I hope the public receives that comparison at every opportunity.
The old website was frankly excellent, the only problem was it didn't have HTTPS support. I would have happily upgraded that part of the system for the cost of a cup of coffee if I'd had an opportunity to submit for the tender!
The new website is significantly more difficult to navigate (for me, a seasoned tech user). The primary thing Dad's everywhere use it for (the weather radar) now requires scrolling to the _bottom_ of the page, and zooming in from the 'map of Australia' to the region you live in. It used to be like, a click to go from home page -> state weather radar with all the info you needed.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-23/bureau-of-meteorology...
If you want to read our local news about it.
> [BOM] said the cost breakdown included $4.1 million for the redesign, $79.8 million for the website build, and the site's launch and security testing cost $12.6 million.
Absolutely stupid, even those numbers are outrageous. They say it's part of some 'larger upgrade package', prompted by a cyber attack in 2015.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-02/china-blamed-for-cybe...
But politicians over here love to blame cyber attacks when technical blunders happen. We had a census a couple years ago and the website fell over due to 'unprecedented load' or maybe it was a 'DDOS attack'? The news at the time couldn't decide who to blame!
Welp, I hope this gets as much world-wide attention as possible so they can be embarrassed and do better.
(Hello, fellow South Australian!)
The painpoint for me has been the loss of information density. 99% of my use of the old BoM was the 7 day forecast showing rain and cloud: former for working outside, latter for photography jobs. Now, at about 800px or narrower the 7 day forecast loses the rain estimate, and all they manage to fit in is day, icon, min and max. The day name could be abbreviated, and the other elements are typically 30px wide. Having to expand each or all days to look for the rain estimate is thoroughly tedious.
Among the highlights of vertical space wastage are 130px for a cookie warning, 50px for "No warnings for this location" and then another 110px for heading a table with "7 day forecast" and "expand all". On a large phone screen, it leaves only about a third of the vertical spacing for starting content; the rest is site header and browser chrome!
I would have settled for https to redirect to http. Instead, it redirected to a generic page telling you they don't support https, with no way to get to the actual content.
Seasoned tech user and changing the link location stumps you? BOOKMARK IT. Things change.
Sorry fellow Aussie here and every Tom, Dick & Harry has had their say on this website during the likely 1000’s of committee meetings here.
I’d charge 96m to the BOM too to upgrade their old POS website.
Reminds me a bit of this classic: https://www.satirewire.com/cubists-launch-unnavigable-web-si...
The entire bill of the UK's Government Digital Services GDS team is about £100 million a year for comparison.
And 96M AUD is about 47.3M GBP so you're not comparing apples to oranges...
>It's the government IT project equivalent of ordering a renovation, discovering the contractor has made your house less functional, and then learning they charged you for a mansion.
Or rather, it's you and your neighbours deciding to fix your house because it's an eyesore, but then you build a huge unpractical mansion for yourself on their expense.
If they hired 3 full time devs at 100k salary each to develop and maintain their website, it would take over 300 years to spend that much money... also unrelated but kind of related - australia spent i think it was over 300 billion for some subs that we'll never get. hot news, if you want free money from people who have no clue, go get it from australia! we are indeed a nation of stupid
Australians will sit and watch their health system shredded, multinationals running off with trillions in resources and pay zero tax/royalties, our poor quality housing and gridlocked cities rank amoungst the most expensive in the world, but will not tolerate anybody fucking with BOM.
Not a user of this site but a lesson for all techies about changing something which is heavily in use. Don't expect people to take to it immediately and provide some way to allow people to gradually transition.
The site itself looks clean and loads fast but people are complaining that they can't easily find information they used to be able to.
Also, the price tag is eye watering!
I think the lesson here is to get feedback early and often. Do an open beta from the start, or at least focus groups where regular members of the public can give opinions on the product as it evolves.
Indeed - this should've been easily possible by having a beta subdomain pointing to the new implementation and let people comment on it to get early feedback.
There were beta versions available for years, but most feedback was ignored.
First I've heard of it. Might have helped to not just listen, but to actively advertise the beta via a link on the main website. Pretty standard practice.
Yeah - but how does a site which was initially projected to cost $4M AUD get to $96M! A 16x increase! The mind boggles.