Instruments and Observations

During the war Allan Cornish, with the help of Alan Martin, Pat Squires, Max Cassidy, Bill Boswell, Lieutenant Commander Dimitrevic and others, created an elaborate instrument laboratory and workshop and revolutionised the Bureau's observational network.

Previously the Bureau had no facility for the repair of instruments, which when faulty were stored in a small room until replacements could be purchased. Allan Cornish's initiatives had remarkable by-products. They helped develop a local industry for special balloon manufacture; they set up a laboratory which reconditioned faulty barometers and maintained a pressure standard; they developed hydrogen generating equipment and, most remarkably, established the beginnings of a network of radiosonde stations; they resulted in the manufacture of radiosonde units by a local company following the construction and testing of a crude radiosonde housed in a shoe box and carried aloft by a balloon train. Max Cassidy was a great help to Allan in developing aerological diagrams and instructional manuals for operating radiosonde ground equipment and for plotting upper air diagrams of pressure, temperature and humidity. Previous plans for the Bureau to publish Max's reminiscences were not realised.

Allan Cornish, with the help of RAAF contacts, was able to recruit extra RAAF workshop staff to work in the laboratories and workshop on the condition he would also test special aircraft instruments in his laboratory for the RAAF.

Shortly after the end of the war, Warren, while attending a conference in London, was able to arrange the purchase of 15 surplus Royal Navy gun-laying radars at a bargain price. The work of converting these radars for land-based wind-finding and arranging sites and buildings to house them was to prove extremely difficult and Warren did not survive long enough to see the establishment of the radar wind-finding network. But Warren deserves recognition for their acquisition and the preparation for their installation. The network of wind-finding radars was to supplement observations from radiosondes in providing much-needed upper air observations for aviation forecasts but, even more importantly, was to give the three-dimensional view of the atmosphere essential for a proper understanding of atmospheric processes.

Bureau of Meteorology