Memories of the Bureau, 1946 to 1962
Foreword
Terminology
Prologue
Preface
Chapter 1: The Warren Years, 1946 to 1950
Warren the Man
Warren Joins the Bureau
Wartime Perceptions and Attitudes
Return to Civvy Street
Frosterley
People in the Bureau
Re-establishing and Reorganising the Bureau
Reorganisation of Central Office
The Position of Chief Scientific Officer
Post-War Reorganisation
The Haldane Story
Public Weather Services
The New South Wales Divisional Office
The Victorian Divisional Office
The Queensland Divisional Office
The South Australian Divisional Office
The Western Australian Divisional Office
The Tasmanian Divisional Office
Pre-war Services for Civil Aviation
Post-War Meteorological Service for Aviation
Indian Ocean Survey Flight
The Aviation Field Staff
Synoptic Analysis, Prognosis and Forecasting
Antarctic and Southern Ocean Meteorology
A Wider Scientific Horizon
Research, Development and Special Investigations
Analysts' Conference, April 1950
Instruments and Observations
Radiosondes
Radar Winds and Radar Weather Watch
Telecommunications
Climate and Statistics
Training
Publications
CSIRO
The Universities
Achievements of the Warren Years
Chapter 2: International Meteorology
Chapter 3: The Timcke Years, 1950 to 1955
Chapter 4: A Year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Chapter 5: The Dwyer Years, 1955 to 1962
Chapter 6: A Springboard for the Future
Appendix 1: References
Appendix 2: Reports, Papers, Manuscripts
Appendix 3: Milestones
Appendix 4: Acknowledgements
Appendix 5: Summary by H. N. Warren of the Operation of the Meteorological Section of Allied Air Headquarters, Brisbane, 1942–45
Endnotes
Index
Search
Help
Contact us
Publications (continued)
The need for such research was well recognised but in my post-war travels to Canada, US, UK and other European countries I observed that the situations in their meteorological services were quite similar to the Bureau. The emphasis was on the development of improved meteorological services for aviation. This was an urgent need and in the absence of meteorological satellites, large solid-state computers and numerical weather prediction (NWP) models priority needed to be given to improving the meteorological understanding of the field forecasters. This is not to say that the articles in the TWRB and WDRB were devoid of discussion of basic scientific principles. Many of the articles discussed the underlying scientific aspects of synoptic situations.The most encouraging feature of the TWRB and WDRB was the response of a wide range of meteorologists in contributing papers to these bulletins. They included contributions from Bureau Central Office, Divisional Office and field office meteorologists and weather officers, Fritz Loewe and Uwe Radok of the Meteorology Department of the University of Melbourne and Bill Priestley, head of the CSIRO Section of Atmospheric Physics. Bill's contribution in WDRB No 14 of December 1949 was 'an experiment on the analysis of horizontal divergence' in which he described the result of attempts by a number of synoptic analysts to measure horizontal divergence from a pattern of wind observations. I happened to be one of the people asked to make the analysis.
The involvement of a wide range of contributors to the two series of bulletins was beneficial to the Bureau in that it widened the horizons of meteorologists and weather officers engaged in making forecasts and in the special investigations required in giving advice to different types of Bureau customer.
The facilities for printing the early bulletins were extremely primitive. Text was typed and diagrams etched on wax stencils which were then used to duplicate the pages on a roneo machine. Pages were collated and stapled between flimsy cardboard covers by staff of the Training and Publications Section.
One non-scientific aspect of the bulletins did much to excite comment among Bureau staff. I have found copies of WDRB Nos 12, 13 and 14 (March, July, December 1949) which contained loose leaf supplements. These supplements contained lists of staff members on training courses, news of postings to remote stations, the formation of a meteorological association and its somewhat riotous functions, sporting activities and other social gatherings including the annual picnics.
People in Bright Sparcs - Loewe, Fritz; Priestley, Charles Henry Brian (Bill); Warren, Herbert Norman
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© Online Edition Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre and Bureau of Meteorology 2001
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