Memories of the Bureau, 1946 to 1962
Foreword
Terminology
Prologue
Preface
Chapter 1: The Warren Years, 1946 to 1950
Warren the Man
Warren Joins the Bureau
Wartime Perceptions and Attitudes
Return to Civvy Street
Frosterley
People in the Bureau
Re-establishing and Reorganising the Bureau
Reorganisation of Central Office
The Position of Chief Scientific Officer
Post-War Reorganisation
The Haldane Story
Public Weather Services
The New South Wales Divisional Office
The Victorian Divisional Office
The Queensland Divisional Office
The South Australian Divisional Office
The Western Australian Divisional Office
The Tasmanian Divisional Office
Pre-war Services for Civil Aviation
Post-War Meteorological Service for Aviation
Indian Ocean Survey Flight
The Aviation Field Staff
Synoptic Analysis, Prognosis and Forecasting
Antarctic and Southern Ocean Meteorology
A Wider Scientific Horizon
Research, Development and Special Investigations
Analysts' Conference, April 1950
Instruments and Observations
Radiosondes
Radar Winds and Radar Weather Watch
Telecommunications
Climate and Statistics
Training
Publications
CSIRO
The Universities
Achievements of the Warren Years
Chapter 2: International Meteorology
Chapter 3: The Timcke Years, 1950 to 1955
Chapter 4: A Year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Chapter 5: The Dwyer Years, 1955 to 1962
Chapter 6: A Springboard for the Future
Appendix 1: References
Appendix 2: Reports, Papers, Manuscripts
Appendix 3: Milestones
Appendix 4: Acknowledgements
Appendix 5: Summary by H. N. Warren of the Operation of the Meteorological Section of Allied Air Headquarters, Brisbane, 1942–45
Endnotes
Index
Search
Help
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Analysts' Conference, April 1950
One of my initiatives was to obtain Warren's approval to hold a conference of a representative group of Bureau people to discuss techniques of synoptic analysis, prognosis and forecasting with the object of exchanging ideas on how best to improve our service. In the light of present day thinking one may wonder why a Supervising Meteorologist (Research) would take this initiative.To my knowledge the Bureau had never before had a meeting of representatives of Divisional and field offices to exchange ideas with Central Office people regarding improvement of synoptic analysis, prognosis and forecasting procedures. Pre-war the Divisional Offices acted as State Weather Bureaus. Field offices were only first established in 1937, except for Walter Dwyer's posting to Darwin in 1934.
Warren readily agreed to the idea of what was called the 'analysts' conference' which was held from 17 to 21 April 1950. J. C. Foley was chairman of the conference, and John Lillywhite was secretary.
The report of the conference, prepared by a drafting committee chaired by W. J. Gibbs, consists of 34 closely-typed foolscap pages. Copies were produced by a photo-lithographic method rather than the inferior roneo wax-stencil then in common use. The copy I hold was used by H. N. Warren, and bears pencilled notes in the neat, minute handwriting clearly recognisable as Warren's.
My memory suggests that Warren attended only the opening session of the conference, which was held shortly before his departure by air to attend a meeting of the IMO Executive Committee in Lausanne at which he suffered a heart attack. Warren's comments seem likely to have been pencilled into the copy I hold during his absence from the Bureau to attend the IMO meeting in Lausanne. It seems that the report bearing his comments was either posted back to Australia or found among his papers after his death. Whatever the circumstances there is no doubt that the pencilled comments on the copy I hold are Warren's.
The papers presented to the conference were pre-printed and the proceedings were written and reproduced as the conference progressed.
Page 27 of the report of the conference states that in the afternoon of 19 April "the conference adjourned to the A/D Admin's room for a farewell gathering on the eve of the Director's trip to Lausanne". Sadly this farewell was to be the last occasion we were to see H. N. Warren.
People in Bright Sparcs - Dwyer, Walter Anthony; Foley, James Charles; Lillywhite, John Wilson; Warren, Herbert Norman
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