Little change in functions and establishments took place during the war years, and in 1918/19 staff totalled 84, of which 53 were in Melbourne. The Bureau in the meantime had passed from the Home Affairs Department, to the Department of Works and Railways and then to the Department of Home and Territories which later on became and still remains the Department of the Interior. The Salaries Vote at this time (1918/19) was £16,979 and Expense's £11,128.

In 1920, T. G. Taylor, now Dr. Taylor left the Bureau to become first Professor of Geography at the Sydney University, he later accepted positions of Professor of Geography first at Chicago and later at Toronto Universities.

Junior professional staff was recruited by means of Public Service Examinations, for the meteorological papers of which candidates had to prepare themselves by a course of self-instruction.

Up to this time (1921), meteorology was mainly a two dimensional study, though some balloon sode soundings had been made before the outbreak of war in 1914 in Melbourne and Sydney and an analysis made of those that were recovered. Observations aloft were confined to observations of cloud movement, and this aspect was exploited to the fullest and correlated with movement of depressions and with present and further weather. Quayle was foremost in this work and it had its application in South Eastern Australia mainly.

Bureau of Meteorology