Dr Patrick Squires (1914–1990)

Dr Squires was born in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton on 12 July 1914. He attended Assumption College at age 10 in the seventh grade, and completed the tenth grade at age 13, in preparation for a career as a priest. However, he spent his next two years independently studying science, and at the age of 16 entered the University of Melbourne. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics from that University in 1934.

He left the University during the Depression and worked initially in the actuarial department of an insurance company. In 1937 he joined the Bureau of Meteorology and trained as a meteorologist with John Lillywhite, Neil McRae and other Bureau identities of that era.

The Bureau was taken over by the RAAF in 1941 as a wartime measure. Patrick Squires served as a squadron leader in the RAAF, being engaged mainly in meteorological research.

Following the war he joined the Radiophysics Division of the CSIRO. In 1946 and 1947 experiments by Schaefer and Langmuir generated virga by dropping dry ice into wintertime stratocumulus cloud decks. Kraus and Squires took advantage of the difference in seasons to seed summertime cumulus clouds in Australia. in early February 1947, a particularly favourable weather situation resulted in an experiment southwest of Sydney which suggested that cloud seeding can, on occasion, result in changes in local weather.

Dr Squires' Australian work with Stewart Turner on air parcel cooling due to mixing at cloud top, and the descending thermals which transported this drier mixed air deep into the cloud, was a pioneering effort in an era which is still a subject of vigorous investigation in cloud physics. Much of his work was conducted in collaboration with Jack Warner, Jim Telford and Sean Twomey.

In 1962 Dr Squires joined the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, as a program scientist, where he also served as an adjunct professor with the State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Dr Squires died at Reno Nevada, following a lengthy illness. He is survived by his wife Mona, three sons, two daughters, and nine grandchildren.

(it is expected that a more detailed summary of his career in the USA will appear in Australian Met. Magazine).

Bureau of Meteorology