Clement Wragge confined himself to the conventional 24-hour forecast while he was in the Queensland Government Service, but after he resigned in 1902, he followed his great interest in long-range forecasting. He was interested in the Bruckner Cycle, which he somehow combined with an 11-year sunspot period, and the press of May 2nd 1912 published a seasonal forecast provided by Clement Wragge for a period up to 1920. Mr Hunt made the official view known by a letter to the press: 'It has been claimed that accurate forecasts for Australia have been published, relating to periods some distance ahead. These are based mainly on astrological considerations. These matters have engaged the attention of modern meteorologists for many years, but they have been reluctantly compelled to disallow that any practical assistance in forecasts can be derived from any of these elements'.[23]

But Clement Wragge was quite undeterred by such judgments, and continued with his long-range forecasts. He had always been a volatile and charismatic figure, and kept a high public profile, with letters to the press and numerous public lectures, and he had a large and devoted public following. He must have been a joy to reporters, and sometimes the press liked to have a joke at his expense. With the heading 'Wragge's Drought' the Queenslander of 1912 said, 'The rain has come and put Wragge's Drought a bit out of the picture. Wragge is now altering his long-shot prophecies and excused himself because some cosmic dust has been flung in his eyes, and has played the devil with his sunspots'.[24]

But the public much preferred the flamboyant efforts of Mr Wragge, to the quiet, scientific but unexciting ways of the Weather Bureau, with its repetitious daily grind, and production of the daily—occasionally wrong—24-hour forecast. Mr Hunt and George Bond made periodic protests and explanations, knowing well that their words would fall on many deaf ears.

Bureau of Meteorology