• Overview
• Highlights
• Management and Organisation
• Corporate Achievements
• Major Issues
• Resource Use

The Bureau implemented a number of important service-improvement initiatives during 2002-03, including the installation of two major new radar facilities in support of Australia’s national weather watch radar network, construction of a new Meteorological Office at Adelaide Airport, and successful tendering for a new supercomputer that will substantially increase the Bureau's overall computational capability.

Other achievements included major systems upgrades in support of forecasting services and information access and delivery. The Bureau developed a range of guidance tools in support of forecasting services, trialled the mobile phone Short Messaging Service (SMS) to deliver warning information for a period of three months, and enhanced its real-time data collection infrastructure to improve the Bureau's flood forecasting system in support of more timely and accurate flood warning services. It also provided extensive forecasting support during an extended bushfire and drought situation.

In addition to the ongoing management of policy, resource and governance issues, senior management continued to focus attention on follow-up to the March 2001 Strategic Assessment of the operating environment of the Bureau. The major issues dealt with during the year included:

• Development of strategies for the optimum deployment of the Bureau's diminishing staff and infrastructure related resources;
• Implementation of new systems and procedures to support the Bureau's operation as an Executive Agency in the Environment and Heritage Portfolio;
• Establishment and initial operation of the Bureau of Meteorology Advisory Board as a high level mechanism for advising the Bureau on its operations and services from an external and primarily user perspective;
• Establishment and initial operation of a Bureau of Meteorology Audit Committee and Internal Audit functions following the Bureau's prescription for the purposes of the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997;and
• Detailed planning of the fit-out and general operational facilities of the new Bureau Head Office and Victorian Regional Office at 700 Collins St, Melbourne.

Most of the essential ongoing operations of the Bureau were carried out to acceptable standards with equipment serviceability and data volumes either maintained or increasing, forecast skill generally maintaining its long term improving trend and public access to, and use of, many of the Bureau's services continuing to expand rapidly, especially so in the case of Internet based services.

An overview of the long term trends of a selection of general output indicators is shown in Figure 13 by way of demonstration of the slow but steady progress in Australian meteorological science and service provision that has been maintained despite the substantial real reductions in resources over recent decades (Figure 12). The corresponding input (resource use) indicators are summarised at the end of this chapter.

The purpose of the remainder of this chapter is to provide a more detailed overview of the performance of the Bureau over the past year, focussing in turn on:

• The key highlights of achievement in each of the major areas of activity that make up the total integrated operation of the Bureau, from observation and data collection through research and service provision to the international cooperation on which the Bureau's services so heavily depend;
• The major developments and changes in the management and organisation of the Bureau during 2002-03, including a summary of the internal management strategy employed during the year;
• An assessment of progress on each of the major undertakings identified a year ago as the corporate priorities of the Bureau for 2002-03;
• Several major additional issues which the Bureau was called on to address during the year;and
• A summary of resources for the year.

Figure 13. Some general indicators of Bureau performance over the 28-year period from 1975-76 to 2002-03. From the top, panel (a)shows that, after a sharp decline in the early 1970s, the basic network of cooperative observers has been largely maintained over the period while the introduction of new technology has enabled the surface observing network (and hence input data volume)to be enhanced through the progressive installation of automatic weather stations (AWS), under the re-equipment and modernisation program initiated in the mid 1980s. Panel (b)shows the increased rate at which climatological records have been archived by the National Climate Centre over the past decade, following the implementation in 1987 of direct real-time ingestion of data. Panel (c) shows the steady improvements achieved in numerical weather prediction (NWP) model skill (decreasing prediction error indicated by lower S1 skill scores)as a result of improved model formulation and increased computer power, with the sharp decrease in prediction error in 1996-97 associated with major improvements in model physics and resolution made possible through upgraded supercomputing capacity. Panel (d) shows the gradual increase in weather forecast and warning accuracy, demonstrated through decreasing errors in both maximum temperature forecasts and tropical cyclone track forecasts. Panel (e) shows the trends over the past 27 years in direct community use of weather information (in addition to that provided through the mass media), highlighting the almost exponential growth in hits on the Bureau's Internet web site (shown on a vertically compressed scale)over the past six years.