The Sky is the Limit [Bettye Macnicol / Jenny Hopwood]

The sky provided a laboratory for two women scientists working in the secluded officers of the bureau of Meteorology in Perth. They are two of three women meteorologists employed by the W.A, Bureau.

For Bettye Macnicol and Dr. Jenny Hopwood it is a laboratory that requires endless patience, where the unexpected must be accounted for—sometimes, says Dr. Hopwood, like a "rather wacky paper chase."

Bettye Macnicol, originally from Melbourne, decided on a career in meteorology after completing a university science degree. "I was attracted because the weather is something that is happening all the time, part of the world around us," she says.

Now head of the W.A. Bureau's special services section, she is in charge of a six-man research team. Describing the adjustments needed for work at the Bureau, she says: "You've got to be easy-going and not too finicky about doing shift work. With a 24-hour roster, social life often goes by the board." And on the job: "You must learn quickly how to put theory into practice. You need an organised mind to sift out the most relevant weather data in the least amount of time, and to make decisions quickly."

Organisation and decision are vital in her present project - a study of industrial land at Coogee to assess the effect of weather conditions on pollution originating at Kwinana. Bettye's experiments direct the Bureau's role in the project. She and her workers visit the site about once a week and inspect sensitive equipment to see if it has been damaged by salt air, and survey the area for future experiments.

Jenny Hopwood says of her job: "I just like to see how things are." She works to find ways of improving weather forecasting. "I find my work fascinating, but I don't know whether anyone else would," she says with a smile. "The weather is like a big puzzle. I've always loved crossword puzzles, brain-twisters, that kind of thing. With the weather, you don't know the answer and you can't turn to page 56 and turn the page upside down to find it."

Jenny Hopwood provides the forecaster with statistical guides which show average patterns in the atmosphere. Her present project is to plot the daily winds at Guildford over the past four years to find any links between winds and fogs.

I will plot the direction and speed of the wind at 6 p.m. on foggy days to see if it is different from days without fog. If it isn't, that's bad luck and I'll have to think of something else. If it is, it will aid the forecaster.

Bureau of Meteorology