Central Analysis and Development

It should be remembered that at the beginning of the Timcke era (1950) the radiosonde network had only been in place for a little over five years and the radar wind network had been planned but had not begun operating.

Southern Ocean analysis which had commenced with the beginning of observations from Heard and Macquarie Islands in 1948 was still in the developmental stage. The network of observations was woefully inadequate for the production of a precise analysis and did not permit an accurate prognosis of the Southern Ocean situation, but it made a remarkably useful contribution in increasing the accuracy of prognoses for southern Australia.

The CAO/CAWDS program included analysis of the upper levels of the troposphere. Observations from the progressively installed radar wind stations and prognosis for these upper levels involved the use of techniques using constant absolute vorticity trajectories.

One difficulty which reduced the effectiveness of the output of the CAWDS was the method of transmission of the analysis and prognostic charts. The position of isopleths on the chart was encoded using a series of five figure groups which on receipt at Divisional and field offices had to be replotted on charts. This difficulty was to be overcome by facsimile which saved much time and produced a superior representation of the CAWDS chart products. Ralph Holmes, as Inspector (Aviation), had the responsibility for telecommunications and badly needed the assistance of a telecommunications engineer. It would be some time before such a person joined Bureau staff.

Bureau of Meteorology