Quite a few northerners yesterday were blowing a lot of hot air, but it was all spot-on the radar when it comes to some latest centralisation news.
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This time around, the news was bleak: the Bureau of Meteorology is about to wipe out 24 regional weather stations and about 30 weather staff across the nation.
It is, according to many, another nail in the coffin for regional services.
But fiddling with our weather – and those who bring it to us – is tantamount to waving a red flag at a bull out in the bush.
Now, the BoM is weathering a storm of protest, and you can expect that the protests will increase just like the temperature does on a hot summer day in Tamworth.
In this climate of exciting times, and the era of innovation according to our new prime minister, the news that a financially constrained CSIRO is having to cut more jobs is not good news.
It mocks the mantra of some of Mr Turnbull’s words and of the smart-times-smart-people messages we hear from our pollies.
It also comes in the wake of last week’s announcement by agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce and environment minister Greg Hunt that a $3.3 million BoM project under the agriculture white paper will provide better seasonal forecasts, and deliver on a commitment to give farmers more accurate, localised and frequent forecasting information.
We can hear Moree mayor Katrina Humphries scoffing from here.
She was one of the first to comment on the news yesterday – and she didn’t mince her words.
She also cited the very pertinent facts that surrounded the 2012 floods that decimated her shire.
The bureau, you might not remember, didn’t get the predictions correct for the flood heights. A bloke on the ground – looking out the window and the rising waters – did.
And that’s Cr Humphries’ candid take on the weather note.
Under the latest cutbacks, the Moree bloke will be relocated to the capital cities. He’s going to be replaced with a supercomputer.
Like many, Cr Humphries believes weather readers, the monitoring men, the blokes who explain the local things to the locals and watch what the equipment is doing and that it is doing it right, belong in the bush where the real weather is.
We rely on it more than some city slicker just trying to work out if he’s off to the beach or the cafe and who’s at the tail end of the weather, because it’s really finishing up along the coast before moving offshore.
Expect this front to gather some more steam.
