2007-06-20

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology

It's a fine organisation. I appreciate all the hard and thankless work these guys and their weather stations can do.

But I didn't realise just how friendly they are to people who email them.

For the past 8 months or so I have been checking out the weather in Sheffield, Tasmania. During Summer I look enviously to this part of Australia as I swelter in heat waves. I also like to see how cold it gets there.

In the past couple of days, though, the BOM weather site was not reporting. I began to get concerned. In the past the BOM have shut down certain sites and I began to get worried that my favourite part of Tasmania was about to get the shaft.

So, innocently, I emailed them.

And they emailed back, promptly.

They explained that it was a electrical issue and that it would be fixed up ASAP. Then I received another email to say that it was now operating.

I'm not used to getting prompt replies from government departments, even less from companies that have public email addresses that they never answer. Not only did I get a reply to my original email, but a second email to let me know the site was up again - without even emailing in return.

So to the folks at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology - and especially Ian Barnes-Keoghan - thank you for a great service and for communicating with interested weather watchers.

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