The ‘inexact science’ of weather forecasting – an Australian history

[ The University of Melbourne Voice Vol. 3, No. 1  14 April - 12 May 2008 ]

By Rob Gell

David Day is well known for his major works as an historian and biographer, but for The Weather Watchers 100 Years of the Bureau of Meteorology he returns to a subject that he was introduced to in his childhood. His father was a weather observer at Charleville during Day’s childhood.

Day also turns to a subject that is dear to many Australians since our weather is a subject of daily discussion. This book provides an insight into the characters that put Australia on the world stage in the early 1800s and provides all the background for weather enthusiasts to become engrossed in the important role that Australia has played in the development of weather forecasting.

Published by Melbourne University Publishing, Day’s book explores from those early days to the present, a service characterised by the quest for correct instruments and technologies, rivalry between states, arguments about the cause of drought, the reliability of the forecast, the ownership of the forecast, weather privateers, prophets and charlatans, weather cycles, understanding of Australian weather systems, a focus on extreme conditions, relationships with the media and the timeliness and accuracy of the forecast for the community.

These issues are of course as important today as they have been over the century since the passing of the Meteorology Act in 1906 and the first Bureau of Meteorology head office was established in 1908 at the aptly named ‘Frosterley’, and built by the even more aptly named Dr William Snowball, and which still stands on the corner of Drummond Street and Victoria Street in Carlton.

Indeed weather and weather forecasting were just as important through the century before that, having occupied the minds of those living here since white settlement and probably for centuries before that too.

As a television weather presenter of many years, to me this book provides an understanding of the difficulties that exist between the good work of Bureau forecasters and the interpretation and understanding of the forecasts by the general public through the media. The capacity of our media to understand the importance of accurate and timely weather information distribution, is frankly a ‘hit and miss’ opportunity for the Bureau.

Day is able to express the frustration of the Bureau in this regard and its reluctance to engage for fear of misinterpretation of the product. The issue of whose forecast is being presented, the Bureau’s or the presenter’s, is clearly still a major issue.

Perhaps The Weather Watchers will assist in the more general understanding of the issues around delivering ‘an inexact science’ in a timely and professional way.

This book also provides us with an insight into the current role of the Bureau of Meteorology in international research; the development of weather satellite technology, weather-radar systems, computer analysis and modelling of climate systems for global research programs in climate change.

Essentially though, it’s a history, and it covers in great detail the major milestones that have made our Bureau of Meteorology a cornerstone in the world of weather and certainly, despite a comparatively low level of resourcing, a major contributor to meteorological and climate science in the world today.

For Australian weather ‘nuts’, and there are plenty out there, this volume is essential.

Rob Gell is an environmental geographer and communications consultant with Access Environmental and Blue Marble Media and has worked as a weather presenter in the Australian media since 1979. He graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in 1974, and tutored in the Geography Department in 1979.