Meteorological Services for Civil Aviation

The arrangements for provision of weather services for civil aviation were to undergo many changes through the rest of the century, particularly following the establishment of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in 1946. The extension of forecasting offices to more and more airports came to an end in the early 1970s with the consolidation of most of the Bureau's forecasting staff in capital city Regional Forecasting Centres, with only briefing and very short-term forecasting functions remaining at a few airports. This was later further centralised, mainly for cost-reduction reasons, in the early 1990s.

Meteorology at the Universities

Under Loewe, and subsequently Dr Uwe Radok, the Meteorology Department at Melbourne University played a leading role in the development of Australian Antarctic meteorology and glaciology, but struggled for recognition and critical mass. It did not achieve professorial status until 1980. With the departure of Dr Peter Schwerdtfeger to Adelaide and Professor Bill Budd to Hobart, Melbourne retained only a small, albeit productive, meteorological effort in the School of Earth Sciences, with Monash University emerging as the strongest Australian university in meteorological research and teaching during the 1970s and 80s. Initially, under the leadership of Professor Bruce Morton, it developed as a centre of excellence in geophysical fluid dynamics and a source of many of those who were to later assume important roles on the Australian meteorological scene. Significant university groups in meteorology also developed at Macquarie University (under Dr Edward Linacre and subsequently Professor Ann Henderson-Sellers), Murdoch University and the James Cook University of North Queensland.

Bureau of Meteorology