At 8am Sunday 12 June we have ABC 24hr TV news reporting that New Zealand has cancelled some Trans-Tasman flights due to volcanic ash from the eruption in Chile. Not a word about ash affecting our skies – then at the end of the news a mention that Tasmanian flights are now affected – is the BoM waking up ?
Now this ash cloud has circled the globe eastwards thus passing near Australia before closing any NZ airspace.
Yet at 8am on the 12th there are no warnings on the Bureau of Meteorology website warnings page – and no mention of ash on their front page – despite the Cordon Caulle volcano in Chile eruption starting on 4th June.
Pretty much hopeless – yes we know it is a holiday weekend in SE Australia.
Warwick
They probably were not asleep but too busy working up their next 3 month outlook for the climate to worry about the weather. They really do need to concentrate!
But Warwick, they were all busy measuring the carbon dioxide level.
By Monday morning the centre was certainly active. It is located in Darwin and may not have anticipated any problem. As NZ is mostly further south than Melbourne (and Tasmania) it was observed there first.