Meteorology

There are two distinct seasons, the wet and the dry, separated by two short transition periods. The wet season is also characterised by winds of variable direction, and the dry season is characterised by the 'south-easters'.

Despite Mr H. E. Whittingham's written comment on page 128 of Extreme wind gusts in Australia, February 1964, the coastal hills do have a significant influence on the wind velocity at Jackson's strip during the 'south-easters'.

The Port Moresby area is not subject to tropical cyclones.

Lae experiences a markedly different climate to Port Moresby, and the topography of the island can be given as a reason for this difference.

Aviation area forecasts were prepared by the Lae office. These forecasts were often divided into sections to cope with the markedly different weather experienced in the highland valleys and over the peaks in New Guinea's rugged interior.

I was quite surprised on my arrival at the Jackson's strip office to find that there was a paucity of information on seasonal averages in the office, despite the fact that Jackson's was originally a World War 2 airstrip.

A reasonable amount of unprocessed data was contained in the office records. In my opinion, some of the public and aviation inquiries could not be answered satisfactorily by using the raw data. These inquiries prompted me to process the data and produce averages of certain phenomena. Selections of these averages were included in an article Seasonal winds and weather at Jackson's airport, Port Moresby, by C. A. Glendinning, published in the Australian Meteorological Magazine Number 27, December 1959. A request to publish a French translation of this article was received from the meteorological service in New Caledonia.

Bureau of Meteorology