Telephone Weather Services (TWS): FAQ's |
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| Answers to the most common questions
are provided below. If the information you require is not provided below,
you may submit a question through the feedback form (use the link at the
top of this page). |
Where do I report problems with 1900 or 1300 services? Report any problems you encounter to the Bureau's Help Desk (at any
time, 24hrs/7days per week), on Where do I find the numbers to access 1900 or 1300 services?The numbers for all services are accessible via the TWS Directory. There are also listings available via phone and fax for when you do not have access to a computer. Fax Listing: 1902 935 254 Phone Listing: 1900 926 113
What charges apply to 1900 and/or 1300 services?Ans: See the User Guide. How often are the weather observations (AWS reports) updated?Ans: Some Automatic Weather Station (AWS) reports (those close to capital cities) are updated every 10 minutes, while others are updated every 30 minutes, and a few are updated hourly. AWS reports are automatically processed and their content is available on the 1900 services within a few minutes of the report arriving at the Regional Office. How often are forecasts updated?Ans: Most are updated three times a day (early morning, around midday and late afternoon). However there are some which are updated four times a day and others which are updated only twice daily. Updates are automatically processed and are accessible from these services within a few minutes of the products being dispatched by the forecasters. Why is it that when I dial into a 1300 service, menu options change from one time to the next (some or all menu options are not offered)?Ans: See the User Guide. I want to talk to a human. Can I be transferred?Ans: It is not possible to transfer your call to Bureau Staff from these services. If the information you require is not available on these services you can visit the Bureau of Meteorology web site at www.bom.gov.au , or contact your local Bureau Office - check your phone directory under "Bureau of Meteorology" for the telephone number. I just want the current temperature. How can I collect it at low cost.Ans: Each capital city has a service which gives fast access to temperatures. Check the TWS Directory for the service closest to you. If you need temperatures for places other than the capital city, you will need to dial into the main service for your Region (the first listing in the directory), and navigate to the area you are interested in. **Take note of the selection sequence and then you can type ahead on subsequent calls in order to access the temperature message without having to listen to all the menus. How many calls can the 1900 and 1300 services handle at once?Ans: Currently each service can handle up to 180 calls at once. The capacity may be increased if/when required to meet caller demand. Callers should rarely receive busy signal when dialling into these services. Why can't I make any selections? The system ignores all my selections.Ans: This is most likely because your phone is not sending tones. See the User Guide for further information. Some messages sound robotic and are hard to understand. Why is that?Ans: Voice messages are automatically compiled from the text prepared by the forecasters or received from Automatic Weather Station reports. This is done using a state-of-the-art Text-To-Speech (TTS) system which builds the voice message by examining the text and then piecing together selected pre-recorded speech elements. Occasionally a required word may not have been pre-recorded, in which case a speech synthesizer will be used to build the required word. Synthesized elements sound fairly robotic and are in a different voice to the other elements in the vocabulary. As over 60,000 words and phrases have been recorded to date, use of the synthesizer is becoming infrequent. |