Research (continued)

Research work was carried out by meteorologists who received their specialised training and early experience at the Melbourne office of the Bureau, although their numbers were, at first, too small to establish a special training organisation. Universities such as Sydney gave some courses in meteorology and climatology, usually in geography departments. In 1939, The University of Melbourne created a department of meteorology as part of the faculty of science, with Dr F. Loewe in charge. He lectured to Met. forecasting courses conducted in Melbourne during the war.

Eventually, Squadron-Leader P. Squires was chosen to lead a new attack on the frontal problem. He had to deal with a mass of data pouring in daily from about 100 widely scattered observing stations. All data had to be plotted on charts. The actual plotting, usually done by Meteorological Assistants, was an interesting procedure. The reporting observing station was represented on the chart by a circle around which symbols of cloud cover, type of cloud, past and present weather, wind force and direction (according to the Beaufort scale), air pressure and barometric tendency were represented in red or blue ink. Temperatures, humidity and pressure were entered as numerals. The stations themselves were identified by numbers.

Bureau of Meteorology