Dan of the 14,016 Days [Dan Lee]

Dan's great legacy as Supervisor of Climate Data Management is ADAM—the Bureau's pioneering relational database offering unprecedented access to, and analysis of, the national climate record.

Typical of tributes at his farewell was a note from RD NSW Pat Sullivan. 'You've been outstandingly successful in managing the national meteorological record . . . the extent of your success is ADAM, a wonderfully effective facility for accessing climate data.'

John Maunder, President of the WMO Commission for Climatology, said he would be remembered as 'Dan the Magic Man' for his enthusiasm and ability to make computers perform. STCC Bill Kininmonth added that he was 'a bit of a traveller, an adventurer . . . well beyond official travel like the Saudi project, and representing the Director at a Botswana conference.'

Dan told guests at his farewell that his First Encounter of the Climatological Kind was in the old Spring St building in December 1958. He filled out B14's, the hourly rainfall totals.

His Second Encounter was helping Dr Harry Treloar in Research 'add up figures, calculate standard deviations, and draw up a few diagrams . . . since I didn't know anything about what he was doing, I was the perfect person for the job.'

Dan took up a Cadetship to Melbourne Uni and was later posted to Darwin for five years. Back to Melbourne in 1970, he joined Meteorological Information Services Sub-section, where Jack Maher's directive was: "Have ideas and make them work."

He worked on the Drought Watch system on deciles, and started investigating applications of computing to climatology. Dan told guests the project which gave him most satisfaction was ADAM. 'The task was daunting, the resources just adequate, and the time critical. It is not yet complete—probably will never be absolutely complete, but it is in capable hands for development.

'It has been a privilege to have worked here, to possibly have left one or two little marks on the climate record, and to have passed on something of value to the Bureau, and to Australia.'

Dan and Helen have retired to rural calm at Romsey, outside Melboume—plus a little travel.

Bureau of Meteorology