Contents
4 President’s report
BAMOS
Jun 2020
3
6 News
8 Reflections—a climatologist
remembers the fires
9 AMOS 2020 conference summary
13 AMOS member highlight—an
interview with Peter Dexter
15 Arms companies and our science:
opportunities carrying profound moral
questions
18 Considerations for co‐design
20 Queensland tornado database review
and update
22 A damage assessment of the 20 May
2020 tornado in Waurn Ponds, VIC
28 The Maitland Gale—5 May 1898
31 Snow is falling less often according to
weather records back to 1838
35 Charts of the Past with Blair Trewin
36 Seasonal Snaps
38 Calendar and JSHESS contents
ISSN 1035‐6576
Editor: Belinda Campbell
Editors‐in‐Chief: Damien Irving, Linden Ashcroft
Assistant Editors: Diana Greenslade, Melissa Lyne and Blair Trewin
Design: Jeanette Dargaville
Publisher: AMOS, GPO Box 1289, Melbourne VIC 3001, Australia
Submission deadline for next issue: 26 August 2020
Contact and submit pieces: bamos@amos.org.au. Submission
guidelines are available online and at the end of this issue.
Image: Sunshine on altocumulus undulatus. Source: Belinda Campbell
Cover image: Cap cloud, with finer scale waves visible in the cloud
structure, generated by the Otway Ranges. Source: Mary Voice
Other images in this publication: Photographs without a specified
source are obtained via the ‘pexels’ website and hyperlinked to the
original image online.
Belinda Campbell
Editor
As the financial year comes to a close, we are thrilled to present
a bumper issue of BAMOS for your winter/dry season reading.
There is a fantastic range of topics covered this issue, with
contributions from across the AMOS community and its sciences.
Now midway through 2020, it’s important to acknowledge the
very tough start to the year many are facing in our global and
local community. On behalf of the BAMOS Editorial team, we
send our best wishes to all BAMOS readers as well as their families
and friends in these challenging times.
We hope this stimulating issue of BAMOS sparks your interest,
provides you with an enjoyable read and perhaps some valuable
insights from colleagues too.
In this issue, we delve into the past with two articles highlighting
a foregone era, the 19th century, and the weather and climate
conditions from a number of events across this period. The articles
examine the environmental, political and social conditions and
provide excerpts of commentary from the time too. With black
and white photographs from the events, newspaper snippings
and analysis of the climatological drivers that contributed, they
are a great read.
Tornadoes make a rare but enlightening appearance in this issue,
with two articles shining a spotlight on tornado analysis. The
first provides an update and analysis of the tornado database
in Queensland, presenting some fascinating statistics on these
events, their frequency and some challenges for recording details
of tornado events. The second is an in‐depth assessment of
damage from a tornado in Victoria in May 2020. The collaboration
and process to gather the information for the assessment is
described in the article and the results of the analysis paint a clear
picture of the damage caused during the event.
As always, we welcome your contributions to the Bulletin for the
next issue. Also a reminder to encourage your peers, colleagues
and friends to get their AMOS membership for 2020, subscribe
to BAMOS and share AMOS social media posts to help raise
awareness of our activities and publications.
There is so much wonderful content to read in this issue… so
without further ado... please enjoy!