Forecasting Procedure

A feature of synoptic analysis in the RAAF Meteorological Service and many other meteorological services in other parts of the world at that time, was the air-mass and frontal model (alternatively called the polar front model) first developed by Scandinavian meteorologists during World War I. The term 'front' had been adopted to indicate the boundary between different air-masses from the use of the same word to indicate the dividing line between two opposing armies. This model had been viewed with little enthusiasm by other meteorological services between the two World Wars except for isolated far-seeing meteorologists such as Kidson and Palmer in New Zealand. Treloar and Squires had studied the application of these models in the headquarters of the RAAF Meteorological Service in Melbourne but with the rather meagre observational network, particularly in the upper air, there was a considerable amount of subjectivity in the practical application of the model. This model was of a character much different from the geophysical fluid dynamic models developed after World War II, improved versions of which run on computers today. Although Richardson had developed a primitive numerical model in World War I, the full potential of such models could only be achieved by the use of a sophisticated electronic computer which did not become available until the late 1940s.

Bureau of Meteorology