The Bureau of Meteorology has bombed out yet again

No sooner than the BOM provided this gloomy reassertion of drought, there was renewed heavy rainfall inland.  Many paddocks (especially in Victoria) are now saturated and a good start to Spring is now certain.  In many cropping areas farmers how expect a bumper harvest because good paddock moisture in August can see a crop though to harvest, even with limited further rainfall.  The Online Young Cattle Indicator also rose 36 per cent, from a low of 409 on 30 April, to 556 on 19 July 2026.

The bottom line is that farmers who believed the gloomy BOM forecasts (implying impending drought) and either sold cattle or failed to plant a crop, would have lost a lot of money.  Having had their fingers burnt by BOM forecasts (on more than one occasion) rural Australians now take seasonal outlook pronunciations with a grain of salt.

The lesson for the BOM can actually be found in its own words, if you search. Their March 2018 Explainer noted that “We're often asked why we only forecast out to 7 days. That's about the maximum length of time we can rely on the accuracy of weather models.  As good as today's weather models are – and they're improving all the time – they're not perfect”.  I think this advice is spot-on, though in very stable conditions meteorologists can project with accuracy for longer.  This all begs the question as to why the BOM issues seasonal forecasts predicting months ahead (albeit with caveats), when they are of dubious accuracy.

Overall, there are few people more dangerous than those who claim to know and advise others, when in fact they don’t know at all.  This applies even more to government organisations like the BOM, who are supposed to be professional, and come close to having an official imprimatur.  The BOM should either stop publishing seasonal outlooks or present them in far more tentative terms.