Other Comments (continued)

Forecasters, on arrival in the Territory, soon realised that a quick acquisition of local knowledge was essential, and some of this knowledge could be obtained from pilots who operated under Papua and New Guinea Visual Flight Rules (VFR) conditions. Valuable local knowledge could also be obtained from a manager of a plantation in a valley, who, for 360+ days per year, reported 8/8 of rising stratus at 0800 hours. The manager may have been hungover from the previous night's activities, but the 8/8 of rising stratus was factual. Lack of knowledge of the geography of the area of responsibility at a new station creates difficulties for a new arrival, and the odd place names in Papua and New Guinea added to this difficulty, but this problem was soon overcome.

Experienced DCA aeradio officers were very helpful with TPNG place names.

In recent years I have been associated with the development of Trend Type Forecasts (TTF), and during that period I have often thought, that with the help of weather radar at Lae and Port Moresby, the TTF operation could be a successful meteorological operation.

After writing of a period that is thirty years in the past, my last statement rapidly advanced to a recent development, the TTF, so it is appropriate to lower the curtain on the effort to describe the events of that earlier period.

C. A. Glendinning

Caringbah
November 1984

Bureau of Meteorology