Meteorologists have slammed the Bureau of Meteorology’s revamped website after devastating storms in Victoria and Queensland at the weekend.

The weather bureau launched its first major website overhaul in 12 years last Wednesday, describing it as a “modern and sleek” redesign aimed at making weather updates clearer and easier to access.

However, residents in storm-affected areas claim the site is difficult to use and left them with little warning ahead of Sunday’s deluges.

Savage storms hit much of Queensland’s south-east on Sunday, delivering lashing rain, lightning and hail, and leaving tens of thousands without power.

In Victoria, strong winds and rain caused flash flooding in some areas, while a “short-lived tornado” may have struck parts of Melbourne’s western suburbs.

Many residents in affected areas, still trying to navigate’s the BOM’s new-look site, claimed they had no warning before the storms struck.

One frustrated Victorian user posted on X that after no warnings of Sunday’s storm, the BOM had “FINALLY decided to declare a warning. ‘Extreme Fire Weather Warning’ “.

Meteorologist Anthony Cornelius took to social media to add his disapproval of the site in a lengthy post.

Cornelius said he had “tried very hard not to weigh in on the BOM’s new website rollout”, but felt moved to comment after a flood of emails and messages from people caught unaware by Brisbane and Ipswich storms.

He said the concerns were linked mainly to three issues:

Brisbane’s Channel Seven meteorologist Tony Auden posted his own assessment to Facebook on Monday.

“Another glaring issue from the recent Bureau of Meteorology website upgrade is the new radar colour scheme,” Auden said.

“While it’s never been properly defined, we’ve always had a rule of thumb that black on the radar means hail, and it’s worked pretty well over the years.”

Auden said the new radar view had essentially clipped the top end of the scale at orange so users couldn’t see any detail in the biggest storms.

“This left a lot of people in the dark about the threat to their homes during the height of the severe weather yesterday,” he said.

The damning assessments follow a wave of disapproval and confusion when the site was rolled out last week.

“The new website is useless. Tried checking for storm forecasts yesterday and can’t find anything. Can’t even find the radar maps — totally useless,” one Facebook commenter said.

Victorian farmer Stuart Barber told the ABC the update made it harder to find crucial weather observations.

“With the weather fronts coming through, it’s really important for us to be able to manage the animals’ welfare and health,” Barber said.

Rogue Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce echoed the sentiment in a Facebook post.

“Asking the question on every farmer’s lips, what on earth has happened to the new BOM website, our beloved old site has been ‘updated’ to virtually useless,” the former deputy PM said.

If the face of criticism, BOM senior meteorologist Angus Hines defended the upgrade, telling ABC Radio last week that while the redesign “might take some getting used to”, all the important information remained.

“It looks a bit different, it plays a bit different, but all the important information is still there, you might just have to find it in a slightly different way,” Hines said.

BOM acting CEO Peter Stone said last Wednesday the new site was developed with community consultation and aimed to make it easier for Australians to access daily updates and warnings, which are viewed more than 2.6 billion times each year.

The bureau expects user feedback to help to shape future improvements.