The Bureau of Meteorology provides an excellent service, but in the online space has been rather dowdy in its presentation.
The plain-text Courier font has been the official style for many years now. Frankly, it looks dull and has possibly driven many web users to commercial sites that present the same data more attractively.
The bureau is now moving with the times and is about to unveil a new look and more detail with its South Australian forecasts.
The promised changes include:
- Twenty-eight locations in South Australia will get a seven-day forecast. This now includes a forecast for Glenelg. Mount Barker will now receive its own town forecast.
- District forecasts get a major upgrade and will contain far more information about rainfall, winds, fire danger and more. Instead of six combined district forecasts there will be 14 individual district forecasts. The smaller size will allow more detailed description of expected weather.
- The Adelaide metropolitan forecast will include a day-one forecast of the probability of any measurable rain and a forecast of the likely rainfall range.
- The seven-day forecasts will be presented as a combination of text and graphics.
- Seven-day forecasts will be provided for more rural locations.
- Forecasts will contain more detail about wind and rainfall, and overnight temperatures for seven days will assist in frost mitigation.
- A new frost warning service will replace the existing frost risk service for the Mid North, Murraylands, Riverland, Mount Lofty Ranges and Lower South East. The service will provide warning of moderate or severe frost conditions for the overnight period.
The extra information is welcome and it’s great to see regional centres like Mount Gamber and Port Lincoln included.
The new design is clean and eye catching. Here is the old-style online forecast:
The old-style weather bureau online forecast.
Here is the new-look forecast:
The new look online weather forecast for Adelaide.
A sample seven-day forecast for Port Lincoln:
A sample seven-day forecast for Port Lincoln.
The changes are due to take effect in “late October”.
I also hope it will be easier to use bureau-provided forecasts in third-party websites and blogs. No information has been provided about that, but it makes sense and will be widely welcomed.
