Radar/Radio Winds and Radar Weather Watch

With DCA installing some of the radars and the Bureau the others, five more 277s were in operation at Eagle Farm, Charleville, Forrest, Perth and Garbutt by the end of 1955.

UK Mk VII radars were installed at Giles in August 1956 and Macquarie Island in February 1958, Metox radiotheodolites were installed at Lae in October 1956 and Honiara in 1958, and 277 radars were installed at Gladstone in November 1957 and at Darwin Airport in 1958.

The last of the 277 radars was installed at Mackay in September 1959. Much earlier we had become well aware that the 277 radars acquired by Warren in the early post-war years could be efficient weather watchers as well as good wind-finders. It had not been easy for Geoff Goodman and Reg Stout, assisted by a willing band of observers (radio) to get them working and maintain them in operation, but the efficiency with which they could track precipitation patterns, particularly those associated with tropical cyclones, offered a new dimension in cyclone warning accuracy. They also provided a highly useful research opportunity to track the extent and movement of precipitation in thunderstorms, scanning both with rotating azimuth bearings at fixed angles of elevation and vertical scanning at fixed azimuths and oscillating angles of elevation.

The proven usefulness of radar for weather watching led to the purchase of SNW51 weather watching radars which were installed at the Cape Byron lighthouse in October 1960 and at Cairns Airport in January 1961. This equipment was not as effective as the 277 radars but was the best weather watching radar readily available.

Bureau of Meteorology