Australia Weather News

There are calls for the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) to shut its capital city forecasting offices and move its resources to the country.

They come in the wake of news the bureau will remove staff from its regional stations across Australia over the next five years.

In North West New South Wales, the Moree office, which has been gradually downgraded over the past decade from two staff members to one, is now set to be fully automated in the next 18 months, with weather forecasting services to be centralised to capital cities.

The bureau's assistant director of observing strategy and operations, Anthony Ray, said positions were not being "axed" but staff would be required to relocate.

"We're just redistributing our workforce, and all of the employees at these stations will be given opportunities and retraining so that they can move from the taking of observations to tasks that are more around ensuring the quality of the observations is good, and ensuring our automated systems continue to run," he said.

Mr Ray said while the local presence was being reduced, efforts were being made to improve forecasts with investment in a new supercomputer.

"I think people can expect to see improved and better quality warnings from the bureau over time, but that personal touch in the local community is one of the things that's going to go over time," he said.

Community calls for reversal of decision

Moree Mayor Katrina Humphries said the decision was another blow to the bush.

"When they close services down in the bush, we don't only lose the person, we lose the spouse, we lose the kids, and it's another downturn in our education system," she said.

Cr Humphries questioned why services had to be centralised in Sydney.

"The rental and costs of running a city office would be far higher than running one in the bush, so if they've got budgetary problems — which they obviously have because this is about the money thing — then take people out of the city and make the bush bureau officers bigger and better, and it would be a huge saving," she said.

"Get it out in the bush where it belongs, because we are the people that rely on weather more than anybody else, because we are the people that supply your food, and when we get it wrong, you're going to go hungry."

In 2012 Moree was cut in half by floodwaters.

Cr Humphries said local knowledge was incredibly important.

"The fact that we have someone on the ground in the bush, in Moree Plains, that can actually look out a window for starters, because we know that the automated stuff isn't that good.

"It's not that long since we had the floods here and the bureau was 5.5 metres out.

"We had a bloke on the ground who could see the waters rising and it made a big difference."

Foundation for Regional Development CEO Peter Bailey echoed the Mayor's comments.

"Ninety-nine per cent of the weather comes from regional NSW. It basically comes from west to east and they're proposing to centralise the BOM in Sydney where the weather basically finishes. It is the last point before it leaves the continent," Mr Bailey said.

"Why wouldn't you put it in the west where there is real impact and real savings? We can reduce the cost of rent."

Mr Bailey is calling on the NSW Farmers Association to mount a campaign to reverse the decision.

Federal Member for Parkes Mark Coulton said he had requested a meeting with Environment Minister Greg Hunt later this week.