Australian Meteorology

Abstract

THE Australian Meteorological Bureau has issued a series of interesting maps showing the normal distribution of temperature and rainfall over the Australian continent. The variety of climate which Australia offers is well illustrated by these charts. The mean summer temperature of the south coast of Victoria (between 60° and 65° F. for January) is about the same as the mean summer temperature of London, while 400 miles to the north the heat is tropical, with a mean temperature of more than 80° F., increasing to more than 85° F. in the greater part of the northwest and central regions. The trend of the isotherms near the coasts shows the usual oceanic effect; they bend southwards in the winter and northwards in the summer in passing from continent to ocean. The isotherms are closest together near the southern coast in summer and near the northern coast in winter. A fault which might be remedied in future issues is the omission of any scale of distances or parallels of latitude and longitude from the charts.