Research (continued)

Herbie Whittingham was a young man with great scientific potential with whom I had worked in the meteorological section of Allied Air Headquarters in Brisbane during the war. At that stage his university education had not proceeded beyond first year but his intelligence and his intense interest in meteorology were readily apparent. He resumed part-time university study after the war and had no difficulty earning his B.Sc. with majors in mathematics and physics.

He worked in the Special Investigations Section of the Brisbane Divisional Office on a wide variety of investigations and was the author of many high quality reports and scientific papers.

His assignment to study the long-range forecasts of Inigo Jones involved him in spending much time with Jones at his farm at Crohamhurst near the Glasshouse Mountains north of Brisbane. He made a detailed study of Jones' method and produced a report which he brought to Melbourne to be presented by hand to Wilfred Kent-Hughes. I recall that in the war years Herbie suffered from severe arthritis (although the RAAF thought him fit enough to join its ranks). This had become chronic when I saw him in Melbourne in about 1952–53 when he and E. W. Timcke personally delivered the report to Kent-Hughes. I remember seeing the somewhat frail Herbie carrying a large fibre suitcase containing the report and associated documents.

I cannot recall seeing the report nor remember it being published. Kent-Hughes and Timcke probably decided to keep it under wraps. No doubt it lies gathering dust in a Bureau file in the Commonwealth's archives. Both before and after Herbie Whittingham prepared his report, other reports of committees established by the Commonwealth Government to examine the accuracy of Jones' long-range forecasts had concluded that the inaccuracy of his predictions made them of no use to farmers or others. In many cases his predictions were so vague that their verification was very difficult. Jones also had the advantage that his predictions were of such a long range that when the month and year for which the prediction had been made arrived many people had forgotten their detail.

Bureau of Meteorology