Rain Seminar (continued)

This is not the appropriate place to make a detailed examination of the papers presented and the discussions which followed. Generally the Bureau's papers discussed the problems of forecasting rainfall, examining particular synoptic situations, study of rainfall statistics and methods of measuring rainfall.

Papers from the CSIRO Division of Radiophysics discussed cloud and rain physics and rain-making. The session dealing with artificial stimulation of rainfall contained two papers by E. J. Smith and one by E. E. Adderley and only brief abstracts are included in the report. The report of the discussion at the end of the session is brief and somewhat vague.

The session on temporal and spatial distribution of rainfall chaired by Col Hounam saw an interesting mixture of papers by meteorologists and engineers and contained a paper by D. N. Body of the Hydrometeorological Section of the Bureau dealing with the prediction of stream-flow from rainfall.

Neil McRae chaired the session on numerical and statistical methods of rainfall forecasting which included papers by Kraus, Jenssen and Radok and five Bureau authors. Of particular interest was the paper by Jenssen and Radok which discussed a NWP made with the use of the primitive Utecom and CSIRAC computers to predict the 500 mb chart and deduce vertical motion from the prediction. It contained reference to a M.Sc. thesis by Jenssen on numerical prediction using the barotropic model which earned him that degree in 1959. This must have been one of the first theses in Australia on that subject.

The seminar concluded with a review by a panel consisting of W. J. Gibbs, C. J. Wiesner, P. Squires, E. B. Kraus, U. Radok, and J. N. McRae with proceedings chaired by Len Dwyer. I identified problems in measuring rainfall, statistically analysing the data, meeting requirements for data and consultative advice, forecasting and warning of heavy rainfall and flooding, and the need for research in various hydrometeorological fields.

Bureau of Meteorology