The Bureau of Meteorology has been plagued with public stuff-ups, including, just a few years ago, a false tsunami alert sent to half of the country.

This is a problem because farmers use the site to plan harvests, fisherman use it navigate the seas, and the rest of us rely on it to decide if we need to bring an umbrella, or can safely travel from one suburb to the next.

Today, climate and energy correspondent Mike Foley on the bureau’s latest disaster: a problematic website revamp that went tens of millions of dollars over budget, proved difficult to use, and, in one case, made severe storms over Brisbane seem less threatening than they actually were.