Australia Weather News

Farmer Matthew Marriott has spent a lifetime monitoring the weather on Victoria's picturesque Prom Coast.

His family has run cattle at Yanakie since 1975 and Mr Marriott knows the area like the back of his hand.

But he cannot predict the weather.

"We're right on the coast, so conditions here are always changing," Mr Marriott said.

"And because it's been unusually dry this year, we've been obsessed with rainfall recently."

A vital service

Mr Marriott usually checks the forecast multiple times a day, but that has changed since the Yanakie automatic weather station shut down at the start of July.

The station began operating in 2012 with a one-off federal government grant and is one of 650 stations dotted across Australia recording temperature, wind speed and rainfall data.

About 200 of them are owned by local councils or privately, but the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) operates and maintains them.

Robert Tracy, who also farms beef at Yanakie, said there was a big gap in weather observation data without the station.

"That became especially clear after a severe storm hit our region in 2011," he said.

"So the Yanakie station was set up the following year with enough funding to run for 10 years."

But that money dried up and the station was closed.

"Initially the South Gippsland Shire Council and the bureau discussed the future of the station with no input from the community," Mr Tracy said.

"We didn't hear about the planned shutdown until April, so there was certainly no transparency."

A spokesperson for the BOM said it could maintain and oversee weather stations only where a "formal funding agreement" was in place.

The BOM has closed three automatic weather stations in the past five years, at Hay Point in Queensland, Kanagulk in Victoria and, most recently, Yanakie.

The spokesperson said the closures were "due to the customer advising the bureau to cease operations".

A change of heart

For another farming community at Nilma North, about 125 kilometres north-east of Yanakie, it's all too familiar.

Their weather station was also set to close at the start of July, but retired dairy farmer Colin Gray led the charge to keep it going.

"We got a letter from Baw Baw Shire Council to say the station would be closing down, and I thought to myself, 'We've got to do something,'" he said.

"Within a month, we had everyone writing letters and contacting their councillors about it.

"And it just snowballed from there."

The council has agreed to fund the Nilma North weather station in conjunction with the BOM for another three years.

"I think people started to realise whether you're a farmer, a tourist, or just an everyday person, we need local weather information," Mr Grey said.

Push for funding

Back in Yanakie, the South Gippsland Shire is now advocating for continued funding for the local station there.

"Council representatives, including the mayor and deputy mayor were recently in Canberra," the chief executive Allison Jones said.

"They met with government representatives to advocate for the continuation of the Yanakie weather station service," she said. 

Mr Tracy is glad the council is listening to the community and he hopes it will make a difference.

"We need to know what the weather is doing."

Mr Marriott agrees, saying farmers, fishers and residents will continue their fight.

"It's too valuable to lose," he said.

"It provides critical data for us farmers, as well as local fire brigades, park rangers, professional fishermen, recreational boaters and tourists.

"Even local painting contractors rely on it."