With the end of our manned Met Station drawing near, the Signal is publishing month by month a series of “Met memories” by past observers and their families.
My first awareness of Lord Howe Island was whilst I was stationed as a Weather Observer with the Bureau of Meteorology at Macquarie Island in the Sub Antarctic. A fellow Macquarie Observer had spent a short time at Lord Howe. He was an accomplished photographer and had shown me many beautiful slides from his Lord Howe posting – I was hooked.
On my return to Australia, I immediately got a three-month relief posting to Lord Howe, where I was warmly hosted by Liz and Lal Wilson as the first occupant of their newly built flat.
Hence began my enthralment with Lord Howe Island resulting in four three-year postings to the Island spanning 19 years, until my retirement in 2019. My very first “boss” was Ian Hutton and I remember vividly, being driven from the airport along the palm lined lagoon Road to Liz and Lal’s – I had arrived in paradise.
In 1990, five officers were employed as weather observers. The office was located at the airport and we operated 16 hours a day, 6am until around 11pm. During the morning shift two staff were required to be on duty at the time of the 9am balloon release. The work was manual and very “hands on”.
As the years progressed further automation continued to be introduced and I began to see a slow and inevitable reduction in staff numbers. Staffing decreased initially to four persons; this trend continued with the addition of more and more technology. At the end of my last posting only two people were required to run the station.
Communications with the mainland rapidly went from manual teletype via phone line input of data by the observer, to internet via satellite transmission of the automatic ground and upper air data.
The final stage of automation was the “Autosonde” and remotely controlled balloon release. The system is now approaching completion and will ultimately see the full automation of the Lord Howe weather station.
I won’t forget my series of postings to Lord Howe – I guess you would call it the “heyday of the weather observer” especially those earlier years. Reflecting on those years I remember events like my second posting for a three-year term.
There were two Officers coming from Sydney including myself. In an unusual move the Weather Bureau administration decided to charter a WW2 vintage DC3 to carry all my personal belongings, (including a 7-metre sea kayak!), to the Island from Bankstown airport. Being an aviation buff and also a keen sea kayaker this was an exciting opportunity; to boot I got to travel as the sole passenger and tea lady. There was an old urn placed behind the jump seat and I made the tea and served the biscuits for the Captain, Jack Curtis, a veteran DC3 pilot from the TAA and Qantas era. It was an adventure for me.
I was fortunate to be a part of the time on the Island pre-internet, and then later when QantasLink began operations. I remember regularly running out to the QantasLink aircraft with the Sydney weather forecasts and often ended up helping with the baggage handling. A radio was installed in the Met office to enable us to talk directly to QantasLink and any other incoming aircraft, to obtain weather updates prior to their arrival. This was the only such service, as far as I know, provided by any weather station in Australia.
It was also the heyday of John “Friendly” Green’s fleet of “Chieftians”, transporting freight and visitors to the Island and locals, friends and family to virtually any port on the NSW coast. It was a time of regular light aircraft ferry flights across the Pacific overnighting and refuelling on the Island. Tailored route forecasts were appreciated especially when the Bureau was one of the few locations with internet on the Island. One ferry pilot was also seen using the Met workshop bench to repair a faulty magneto and then he continued on to Auckland. A favourite and regular visitor was the consummate aviator and ferry pilot, Jim Hazelton.
Yachties were always welcome to come into the Met office to obtain forecasts whilst visiting the Island. The Gosford to Lord Howe yacht race always was an occasion for a busy, crowded Met office. It wasn’t unknown for me to deliver a paper forecast to a yacht moored in the lagoon by kayak, much to amusement of the crews.
The HMS Nottingham grounding was an incredible experience for the Island broadly, and was especially intense for the Weather Bureau and the staff. The office was seconded by the Australian and British Governments and became a hive of activity, a hub of communications with a veil of secrecy.
As weather observers we had to conduct our regular daily routine amidst hushed phone calls, myriad classified faxes, endless radio chatter and ceaseless comings and goings of military personnel. It was an exciting but stressful time.
Each day in selected locations throughout Australia, the Weather Bureau releases large hydrogen-filled balloons at 9am daily. Lord Howe is one of those stations. Most ballon releases are located in areas prohibited to the public, but Lord Howe is an exception and visitors and tourists are encouraged to view the release at close hand. After the balloon release tourists were invited into the weather station to watch the tracking of the balloon and ask questions.
I thoroughly enjoyed my interactions with tourists and was often answering weather related questions, like: “Will I get a clear view of the Island on the day I climb Mt Gower?”; “Is climate change is real?”; “Will my flight be cancelled on Wednesday”?; and “How did you manage to get a three-year stint in such an amazing location”?!
A very incomplete list of unforgettable experiences on the Island include piloting Friendly’s Cessna 172, at dawn (prior to starting my morning shift), regularly paddling my kayak out to the Admiralty Islands, scuba diving under Malabar, Twin Caves and Little Slope, end-of-shift starlit bike rides homeward along the airstrip, billy teas with friends at North Bay and enjoying international notoriety as a ham radio operator at a rare location.a
Just like other ex-weather observers – Ian Hutton, Jim Lonergan and Alistair Crombie – I have remained a happy captive of Lord Howe Island.