Warnings

Equally baffling was the lack of an observational network and telecommunication systems needed to produce a reliable warning system. Realising the damage done by floods and gales associated with the tropical cyclones which visited the coast of Queensland, Clement Wragge attempted to improve the observational network and predict their movement. He also became the Australian pioneer in artificial stimulation of rainfall by using Stiger vortex guns in an attempt to break a severe drought in Queensland.

After its creation, the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology attached considerable importance to the development of warning services, but the lack of knowledge of atmospheric processes and the absence of adequate observational networks and telecommunication facilities prevented significant improvement of warning services. Nevertheless the first Commonwealth Meteorologist, H. A. Hunt, developed ideas of the causes of development and breaking of droughts and Captain J. K. Davis persuaded the Government to establish a cyclone warning station on Willis Island in the Coral Sea.

Little progress had been made in remedying these deficiencies of knowledge, observation and telecommunication at the time of the outbreak of World War II. Defence aspects led to the development of technology during the war that provided the promise of solution of the problems.

As mentioned earlier H. N. Warren and E. W. Timcke had seen the Bureau take advantage of technological developments in the fields of instruments, observations and telecommunications, but it took considerable time for the new systems to be developed. During the Dwyer years the benefits of improvements in instruments, observations and telecommunications began to be reflected in the quality of the services provided by the Bureau to the Australian community, and this was especially evident in the Bureau's warning services.

Bureau of Meteorology