Radio 9.8.08

  Queensland’s first meteorologist appointed by the Government was truly an extraordinary person. At 32, he was tall and lean, restless with a mop of red hair and had bounding energy.

His name was Clement Wragge. Born in England in 1852 he spent some time at sea before joining the staff of the British Royal Meteorological Society. He made a name for himself when he was given the task of setting up and running a weather station on top of Ben Nevis, one of Britain’s highest mountains.

When in 1887, Clement Wragge accepted an offer of an appointment by Queensland Government; it rained incessantly for several weeks and resulted in him getting the nickname of ‘Inclement Wragge.

However, within a very short space of time he established 400 rain recording stations, including Maleny, and 100 synoptic weather stations, including Crowhamhurst Observatory, near Peachester, where Clement’s pupil and assistant, Inigo Jones set up the world famous centre for long range forecasting, based on weather cycles and sun spots.

Another first for Wragge was naming of tropical cyclones. After using the Greek alphabet, he turned to using names of Government politicians of the day, because he said both were ‘national disasters’. This didn’t go down well with the Government, and their objection resulted in the naming of cyclones discontinuing for many years only to be resumed by the Bureau of Meteorology in 1963.

Wragge thought he could break droughts by firing Steiger Canons at rain bearing clouds, as some success had been reported of similar experiments carried out in the Mediterranean vineyards regions. So he set up a ring of canons around Charleville and fired them all at the same time to create a tremor in the atmosphere. The experiment failed miserably. One of the Steiger canons is still place today and can be seen at Charleville.

Riddle ~ what gets wetter the more it dries?                             A towel