Mr Haydon Walker, Worldweather Enterprises, Crohamhurst Observatory, P.O. Box 110, Roma Street, Brisbane, Qld 4003. Ph: (07) 3895 8060; Fax: (07) 3891 7414 haydon.walker@ozemail.com.au

The present system of forecasting is based on the major planetary revolutions around the sun and these range from 11 to 165 years in length. The planetary cycles are only utilised when the major planets are in close proximity to the 18th hour R.A. (Right Ascension) or 2701 heliocentric longitude.

Assuming one were utilising a planetary cycle of 84 years in length, it would be imperative that the sunspot activity of 84 years ago would be the same as at the present time. This rarely occurs, so one must modify or intensify the amount of rainfall in any particular month according to whether the sunspot activity is above or below that of the previous cyclical period.

The late Indigo Jones and Lennox Walker considered that the positions of the planets in relation to the sun caused a waxing or waning of the sunspot cycle. Normally when any of the major planets are in the vicinity of the 18th hour R.A., Australia experiences dry or drought years. In years of high sunspot activity Australia experiences wet or flood years. Conversely, in years of low sunspot activity Australia experiences dry or drought years.

Until a means for forecasting sunspot activity is devised, Mr Walker believes that we must continue to utilise the planetary theory as a guide to sunspot activity.

Detailed yearly forecasts may be prepared for business firms for the various States and these reports would be broken into months, giving the anticipated rainfall in the various Divisions and Metropolitan area, whether light, moderate or heavy and above or below normal. The anticipated rainfall distribution dates as based on the metropolitan areas are also included.

Monthly forecasts may be prepared for the various States and forwarded on about the 25th of each month. These reports would give the anticipated rainfall in the various Divisions and Metropolitan area together with the anticipated rainfall distribution dates and an extensive line of temperature extremes as based on the Metropolitan area.

Yearly forecasts may be prepared for a particular area and these reports would give the anticipated rainfall each month, whether light, moderate or heavy and above or below normal. Special reports and exclusive service forecasts may be prepared to suit specific requirements.

 Fedration and Meteorology

Long Range Forecasting

Australian farmers have always had an insatiable appetite for long-range weather forecasts and, for many years, the late Inigo Jones, who had worked under Clement Wragge in Brisbane, provided seasonal forecasts from his privately operated Crohamhurst Observatory in southeast Queensland. Despite two Ministerially commissioned investigations which concluded that his forecasting methods had no scientific basis, the demand for his forecasts remained and after his death the service continued under Lennox Walker. Through the 1950s and 60s, Bureau, CSIRO and university scientists and several private individuals continued to experiment with long-range forecasting, but it was not until scientists gained a better understanding of the influence of the ocean and the mechanisms of the El Niño and the Southern Oscillation in the 1970s and 80s that some forecasting skill emerged. During the 1990s, through the work of the Bureau’s National Climate Centre and other groups including the Queensland Centre for Climate Applications, Australian scientists have emerged as world leaders in the preparation of seasonal outlooks and their practical application to agriculture and other important economic sectors.

Inigo Jones (1872–1954)

A few years later, the father acquired a farm and the family settled at Beerwah, about 60 miles north of Brisbane, and the property was named ‘Crohamhurst’ after Lord Goschen’s Surrey estate. Here Jones set up his meteorological station, which he maintained for almost two-thirds of a century; and here on 2 February 1893, he measured 35.71 inches (907 mm) of rain; the greatest daily fall on record in Australia.

About this time Wragge, at the suggestion of the Postmaster General for Queensland, had begun to explore the practicability of issuing long-term weather forecasts on the basis of the Bruckner cycle and the sunspot period, on which Wragge had already done some experimentation. As a member of Wragge’s staff, Jones was called upon to assist in these studies, and as the years went on he developed such enthusiasm for the work, that it became his life’s principal concern.

In 1923 Jones began issuing long-range weather forecasts, for which he was to become famous. His forecasts were based on astronomical observations and the repetition of weather cycles and although they were never proved, during his lifetime (and since), to be founded on a correct theory, they gained for him a big following among primary producers.

Agitation for official recognition of Jones’s forecasting methods persisted to such an extent, that in 1954 the Federal Minister for the Interior established a committee to conduct a Departmental investigation into Jones’s activities and claims. This committee had shown that Jones’s forecasts had only a 50 per cent chance of being correct.

 At the 1939 meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science at Canberra, Jones submitted a paper dealing with long-range forecasting and his researches on this subject, but on a move, headed by Kidson the paper was expunged from the Agenda.

When Jones commenced his long-range forecasting he received financial aid from the Queensland Government and he moved to Brisbane, but in 1934 he returned to Crohamhurst to build an observatory, receiving aid for this purpose from the Colonial Sugar Refining Co. Ltd.

In 1942 the Long-Range Weather Forecasting Trust, a non-profit body, was established by organisations within primary industry, (with further financial assistance from the Queensland Government) to enable Jones to pursue his researches at Crohamhurst.

It is stated that among Jones’s most spectacular forecasting successes were :

1. In 1933 he forecast the Riverina drought of 1936;


2. In 1938 he predicted to within an accuracy of one day, the fall of August rains that ended a serious water shortage in Sydney; and


3. In 1944 he predicted heavy rains that fell in New South Wales and Queensland in 1950.

The last forecast on which Jones was engaged up to the day before his death (14 November 1954) and which had to be completed by his successor was that ‘Christmas day (1954) would be fine and hot from Brisbane to Adelaide’. However, some of his long-range seasonal forecasts stretched well into the future, the following are some of those extant at his death: Jones forecast drought in the years 1960 and 1972, while he predicted ‘a terrible 10-year drought from 1983 to 1993’.

Jones was elected a Fellow of the Astronomical Society in November 1935, he was also Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, and a member of the Astronomical Society of France and of the American Meteorological Society.

In addition to his forecasting work to which he was dedicated, Jones had several hobbies; he was a farmer and gardener, a painter, a keen reader and collector of gramophone records, while violin playing may be added to accomplishments.

Jones died at Crohamhurst on 14 November 1954 aged 81, survived by wife and three daughters. His work was taken over at Crohamhurst by Lennox Walker, his chief assistant for fifteen months whom he had nominated as his successor, and who has maintained the work up to the present.

November 1969

J. Hogan