The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) website and app are useful tools used by many farmers and producers. The tools help landholders to understand upcoming short and long-term climate forecasts, assisting with informed property management decisions. But did you know BOM also has a YouTube channel that provides regular videos and playlists? These outline weekly, monthly and even severe weather forecasts and events.
Navigating the BOM website can be tricky and may not always provide clear and usable information. Created by the scientists and meteorologists at BOM, these videos help make the information more digestible and easy to implement on your property. They also provide the most up-to-date information and are posted regularly.
The landline weather playlist provides weekly weather outlooks for the whole of Australia focusing on rainfall across the country. These episodes are added every Sunday and can be used to inform short-term decisions. The climate and water outlook playlist covers monthly and seasonal rainfall and temperature outlooks for three-month intervals for the whole of Australia. These are released every month and at the start of every season. Long-term forecasts are still the best source of upcoming conditions compared to climate drivers alone, which help ground truth models, as they consider other factors like sea surface temperatures, and atmosphere-ocean interactions.
The videos under the agriculture playlist are tailored to each state and territory, with a focus on a particular crop. The sugarcane outlook videos for central Queensland provide forecast information specifically for the Mackay, Whitsunday and Isaac regions. These videos are posted monthly between April and September.
For forecast information related to our region over spring and summer, the grain's monthly climate outlook for QLD and NSW, provides climate forecasts, with our area just viewable at the top of the map displayed in the videos.
The videos look at comparing past forecasts with known observations to confirm how accurate the predictions were, short term (weeks) and long term (months) forecast predictions and the comparison of different international forecast models. This information can then be used to inform short and long-term decisions on your property.
BOM also requests feedback from farmers to allow them to learn and adapt their tools and products to make them as useful as possible for farmers and producers. Any feedback can be provided to agriculture@bom.gov.au. These videos are another tool in your kit for helping make farm-based management decisions based on forthcoming weather conditions, thereby optimising crop productivity, and enhancing time management efficiency.
Additionally, for those interested in further resources and initiatives focused on drought resilience, the Tropical North Queensland Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub (TNQ Hub) led by James Cook University offers valuable support and collaboration opportunities for land managers and communities in the region.
Senior Project Officer Carlos Bueno
Project Officer Rachel Taylor. Photo supplied
Drought Hub - Putting Faces To Names
You may have heard of us but we wanted to help put faces to names as representatives of Tropical North Queensland Drought hub in the Mackay Whitsunday Isaac region.
Senior project officer Carlos Bueno (carlos.bueno@reefcatchments.com) and project officer Rachel Taylor (rachel.taylor@reefcatchments.com) from Reef Catchments work as part of drought hub as a point of contact for our region.
We’re here to connect farmers and producers with options for managing your farm including sharing information on local webinars, workshops and grant opportunities on a range of topics such as climate forecasting, farm infrastructure, new technologies or practice changes.
We know farmers and producers have limited spare time, thereby our goal is to be that one stop shop to point you in the right direction to achieve your management goals while making your farm and business more resilient to our changing climate. Feel free to email either of us through email or call Reef Catchments on 07 4968 4200.
