November 24, 2025
Forecast: outrage with a chance of memes
Bureau of Meteorology asked to examine $96.5M bill for website redesign
Australians rage over $96.5m weather site makeover as farmers and users say it made things worse
TLDR: BOM says its website rebuild cost $96.5 million, and the minister wants answers. Commenters erupted—accusing waste, joking about 24/7 consultant billing, and mocking tech choices—while farmers hated the radar changes, highlighting why spending big on essential public info needs transparency.
Australia’s weather watchdog just dropped a bomb: the Bureau of Meteorology says its new website cost $96.5 million—after first saying $4.1 million—and the environment minister has told the new boss to sort it out. The launch was a storm of complaints, with farmers furious that the rain radar became harder to read and the site confusing to navigate. Nine days later, BOM scrambled to switch the radar back and promised more fixes, but the internet wasn’t forgiving.
Commenters unleashed. One called it an “egregious waste” while another did back-of-the-napkin math and joked consultants must’ve billed 24 hours a day at $500/hour to hit those numbers. Tech sleuths on BuiltWith claimed the site runs on old-school languages (PHP, Perl, Java), sparking memes like “Perl in 2025?!” and “enterprise spaghetti.” Others offered to “negotiate for 10%,” and one joker said they should’ve gone for a round billion and slapped in AI to make the storm look futuristic.
A tiny chorus defended BOM’s line—that a “complete rebuild” with modern security and accessibility costs real money. But with the price breakdown ($79.8m build, $12.6m launch/security, $4.1m redesign) and the government stepping in, the community wants receipts, not rainbows. Full outrage thread: outrage and radar reverted.
Key Points
- •BOM disclosed its new website cost about $96.5 million, not $4.1 million as initially stated.
- •Cost breakdown: $4.1 million for design, $79.8 million for build, $12.6 million for launch and security testing.
- •A complete rebuild was undertaken to meet modern security, usability, and accessibility requirements.
- •Public complaints after the October 22 launch led to reverting the radar map and other fixes.
- •The federal environment minister asked BOM’s new boss to examine the project’s cost and functionality and report back.