octave

Glass half empty rather than glass half full (depending, of course what you are hoping for)🙂 My natural curiosity made me look at other countries' weather sites, especially radar. Compared to all these sites, BOM's old site does seem a little dated and certainly harder to operate. Drag and zoom does seem to be favoured over defined steps to the next radar site over or defined clicks between levels of zoom rather than a smooth zoom to the desired magnification. US National Weather Service UK Met Office European Radar Old BOM Radar

We used to live int shoebox int middle of t road"

The chance of rain does have some science behind it. There are also different ways of expressing the same prediction. For example, there is an 80% chance of marital relations with Mrs Octave tonight or a 20% chance of not getting any; it means the same thing. There is always a conundrum in communicating information to a varied public. Someone will always be unhappy. In Britain, there was a campaign in 2011 to do away with percentages and use narrative terms like "slight chance" and "scattered" Probability of precipitation

Just looking at the how the chance of rain is expressed. In my location next Friday at 5am There is: a 50% chance of 0mm (50% it won't rain) a 25% chance of at least 1mm a 10% chance of at least 3mm On the old forecast site, it just gives a 75% chance of rain on that day. I can't see why anyone would be baffled by this.

Is it strange? It depends on what the question is. If the question is what the chances are of it not raining (so I can go out in the boat or for a bushwalk), oh, 100% great or what are the chances that rain will impact my activities (0% -great). Both of these are logical. I think the complaint is that they used to do it this way, and now they are doing it a different way. I don't think many people would be confused and not understand what it means.

You are not wrong about that. I clearly remember back in 1990 that a 60w solar panel was $595. Now, for about $300, you get over 400W, and when you consider inflation, the price drop is enormous. One of the things we struggled with back then was lighting. The best choice at the time was quartz halogen. Each 20 W bulb was $13 and was better at producing heat than light. Today's LED lights would have been fantastic. We don't have a house battery, but we did get a quote. The problem is that our bills our so low that the payback time was 20 years, which is far longer than the warranty. As far as backup goes, our power seems to be amazingly reliable. I can honestly say we have not had a power cut longer than seconds in the last 8 years. That could change in the future, I guess. For emergency backup, we might consider something like this EcoFlow DELTA 2 Max Portable Power Station, obviously it would only power the fridge and lights, perhaps an induction hotplate. It would also double as a power supply for camping

Large batteries such as the type being installed on house solar systems can run an oven etc. "house battery, like a Tesla Powerwall, can power a Tesla oven, but its runtime depends on the oven's power consumption and the battery's capacity."

Batteries are being installed at record rates. I don't have a battery yet, but when I do, power cuts of a reasonable length will be irrelevant. Currently, my electricity bill is in credit. I have electric hot water, heating and an induction hotplate. With battery backup, why would I want to add gas into the mix only to increase my energy bills? This is, of course, from my personal perspective. Also, gas is not the best for indoor pollution.

I mean, of course, Trump 2028

The point is that a lifetime of experience tells us that statues don't move. Then, what someone thinks is a statue suddenly moves. It takes time for the brain to analyse what is happening. In the meantime, the amygdala senses something is not quite right and before the brain can analyse the situation, it sends a "let's get out of here message. "The amygdala is a pair of almond-shaped neural clusters located deep in the temporal lobes of the brain that are part of the limbic system and are crucial for processing emotions like fear, pleasure, and anger. It plays a vital role in survival by helping to detect danger and initiate a "fight-or-flight" response. The amygdala also influences memory formation by attaching emotional significance to experiences, making emotionally charged memories more robust. " Nothing to do with intelligence, just a protective reflex.

All healthy humans have the "fight or flight reflex" This is how we keep ourselves safe. To get away from sudden movement or noise before our brain has had time to process what is happening is a survival instinct. GON are you seriously saying that if I suck up behind you and smashed two metal bin lids together, that you would not react at all?

There is a link to the old site https://www.bom.gov.au/australia/charts/ This is going to be incorporated into the new site. Everything on the old site will be on the new site.

By the way the new radar page does contain more information than the old one. On the new one place labels are clickable to open general weather information. On the old map place names are non clickable, you have to go to another page. I don't much care whether people prefer the old or new. It is worth considering that if you think the new sites is worse in every aspect you surely must consider that you might be a tad biased. Whilst you may think I am foolish I have at least spent considerable time exploring the new site.

My understanding is that every shred of data that was available is still available. Things may be accessed differently but they are still there. Any new interface does take a little time to get used too. I have had so many conversation on Reddit where people have complained about a missing feature that actually does exist. Nev are you after synoptic charts?

Let's hope so, although this interview with Steve Bannon, former Trump advisor, is a little concerning. You only have to watch the first 40 seconds. This guy says there are plans for Trump 26 regardless of the 22nd Amendment

Agreed. It is quite common for people to be outraged when the UI on a site changes; however, down the track, they get used to the new site, and then if there are more changes, they want the last site back (not the original one). I can almost guarantee that in 6 months, people will be comfortable with this site and will resist any further changes. I do accept that some may have particular complaints with some aspects of it but the quotes in the media often make false claims and tend towards hysteria. Some of the quotes are incredible, "whoever is responsible must be sacked," or claiming that features are not available when they are. As an example, you have certain preferences for the UI on the radar site. I don't imagine you will stop using the radar site because of its new UI, and likewise, if they were to change it back, I would happily use the old one, although I might miss some of the new features. The changes, at least to me, are not a deal breaker.

We had an outdoor event today, and the weather was iffy. I wanted to know what the weather was like within a 3-hour timeframe. Here is an old radar shot from my nearest radar station (I live in Geelong and the nearest station is near Melbourne. Notice how Geelong is in the left hand bottom corner. This radar picture does not give me enough information about what is coming from the west. I must then click on 128km instead of 64km or perhaps even 256km. This shows more area to the west, but zoomed out. I want to be able to see 64km scale but with my location in the centre This works better for me. By the way, how do you get the old radar to be full screen? Also, it looks like some crappy weather is coming in from the west.

Isn't it incredibly easy to zoom in or out? Here is me opening up the site. When this radar opens, it covers most of Victoria. This gives me a good overview of the rain in the state and which way it is moving. I can then, with a couple of clicks, zoom in to my local area. This seems quicker than going to the old radar siite and deciding between, for example, 256km or down to 64km. On the new radar, the images from all of the radars in Aus are sort of stitched together, allowing for smooth zoom rather than click and reload. Untitled 516 (3).mp4

I think their initials are A C

What I don't like about the old radar site is that I don't seem to be able to make it full screen on my phone. Moving from one radar station to another is very clunky. The old radar site is not displayed with general weather information. When viewed on a phone, you need to select, for example, 64 km and then drag the image bigger in order to get any useful information. These are screenshots of how the old and new radars open on my phone (no tweaking of either of them). I know which one I think is best. I can make the older radar larger but I have to use two fingers on the screen to drag it larger.

It is thought that at least some of these boats were fishing boats. GON if some of these people were not drug smugglers, and the ones that were were almost certainly not headed for the USA (range of these boats not sufficient to reach the USA) do you care if innocents have been blown to pieces? Undoubtedly, not all of these people blown to pieces were not drug dealers. Two people survived an attack on what was thought to be a fishing boat. These two were not arrested or tried but sent back to their home country. It could have been a little embarrassing if they were questioned in court. Something navies are good at is stopping and boarding boats. Why not board and search these vessels and arrest and interrogate to gain intelligence about drug networks? I suspect part of the reason is to appease Trump's moron followers. Civilised countries do not carry out extrajudicial executions. Certainly, the military is not comfortable with blowing people out of the water who may or may not be drug smugglers. Top admiral steps down abruptly amid drug boat strikes On top of that, the US is building up its military off the coast of Venezuela U.S. deploys aircraft carrier to waters off South America in major military escalation Nation Oct 24, 2025 3:34 PM EDT As well as that, Trump claims that there are CIA agents operating in Venezuela, so much for that Nobel Peace Prize

The map loops automatically. Instead of buttons, you can play or pause or drag the progress bar. Instead of the 64km, 128km, etc buttons, you have the ability to zoom smoothly between the minimum and maximum zoom. Instead of clicking the arrows to move to the next radar station, you can just drag the map all the way across the country if you wish. This dragging seems less clunky than clicking to move from one radar station to another. The drag and zoom is more like Google Earth or Google Maps. To me, at least, this is much more usual. I guess it's down to personal preference. Having followed this on Reddit and other places, there does seem to be a lot of hysteria. It is clear a proportion of people bagging haven't really used it for more than a couple of minutes Here is a screen capture of me briefly using both radars (a bit too compressed in order to upload). Moving around the map is just smoother than the clunk clunk of click buttons. w1 (1) (1) (1).mp4

For those who prefer a map. I am not a huge fan of the colour coding; however, you can click on any place name and get the information in text form

It is definitely available. Temp at the moment is 17.3 In my location, the current wind is 7 knots wsw, currently climbing to 9 knots at 1PM (and predicted hourly) Humidity 49% predicted hourly, looks like it will get more humid tonight 84% at 11PM https://www.bom.gov.au/location/australia/victoria/central/o2577556437-north-geelong#today

Do you mean the current wind at a given location?