The Universities

Professor Ross of the Physics Department of the University of Western Australia in the 1930s also had an interest in meteorology, mainly in optical phenomena such as the fata morgana and the green flash.

As mentioned by Gibbs (1982), in the late 1930s the Wimperis and Simpson reports had excited interest in the need to have the University of Melbourne participate in meteorological teaching and research. In his report in 1937 Wimperis had recommended the creation of a position of Reader in Meteorology in the University of Melbourne.

In 1937 Professor Raymond Priestley, noted Antarctic scientist and member of the last Scott expedition to the Antarctic arranged that Carnegie Foundation funds be used to bring Fritz Loewe to Melbourne to take up the appointment of Reader in charge of the Meteorology Section. The Section was originally located in the Physics Department but Professor (later Sir Leslie) Martin, head of that Department, regarded Meteorology as an unscientific discipline and arranged for it to be transferred to the Geology Department.

Figure 12 Fritz Loewe made a major contribution to meteorology in Australia. Most of the younger members of the Bureau benefitted from his lectures and contact with him, particularly in the late 1930s and the 1940s.

Fritz Loewe was born in Berlin on 11 March 1893, the son of a Prussian judge. In World War I he saw action with the German Army on both the Eastern and Western Fronts, being awarded the Iron Cross, First Class. He studied physics and geography after the war and, while working as a scientific assistant at the Potsdam Meteorological Observatory, obtained a Ph.D. in geography in 1923.

Bureau of Meteorology