Hayden Walkers Weather

Our organisation has been in the business of weather forecasting since 1892, and therefore we are the longest serving professional Australian weather forecasting company. If you have a strategic decision to prepare for your business, or a private function to organise, we provide accurate weather forecasts to reduce your risk, at the same time increasing productivity and profit. 

Our weather records date back centuries, and tied in with these events we have significant sunspot records which enable us to make comparisons regarding climate extremes. Past weather records in combination with my recent observations, enable me to assess the Sun’s volatility, and therefore, are able to forecast major climate changes throughout Australia. What happens on the Sun’s surface directly influences our weather patterns. 

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Four Generations of Accurate Forecasters

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Clement Wragge 1852 – 1922

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Much of the meteorological pioneering work in Queensland was performed by Clement Wragge, 1887 to 1902. By 1893 he had established nearly 100 meteorological stations in Queensland, together with 400 rainfall stations, so laying the meteorological foundation for Queensland. Clement also started the tradition of naming tropical cyclones, initially with the Greek alphabet, and then onto using the politicians of the day. Assisted by a young man named Inigo Jones, Wragge also began to issue long range weather forecasts for Queensland.

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Inigo Jones 1874 – 1954

 

On February 2, 1893, Jones’s noted an Australian record rainfall of 958mm for the day. From round that time for the next 6 decades he kept a diary in which he recorded the daily weather. One of Jones beliefs was in the definite cycle of weather. He believed the longest cycle lasted some 165 years. In 1923 Inigo correctly predicted rain after a dry spell. The ensuing rains created a demand for more of his forecasts so eventually it became his full time job along with lecturing. Jones sought sponsorship from 1927 to 1934, and the Queensland Government appointed him director of the Bureau of Seasonal Forecasting. Industry and Government contributed to the Inigo Jones Seasonal Weather Forecasting Trust formed in October 1928. It comprised of representative bodies of farmers and graziers and the Queensland Government. In August 1935, the Crohamhurst Observatory in Queensland’s Glass House Mountains was opened with funding from the Trust and the Colonial Sugar Refining Company. Inigo Jones died at the Crohamhurst Observatory in 1954 and his work was taken over by his assistant Lennox Walker.

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Lennox Walker 1925 – 2000

After convincing his parents to help him put his age up, Lennox joined the army and at the tender age of 16 ½, he served on the Kokoda Trail in New Guinea and stayed in the army until 1946. On his return, he became a surveyor with both the Queensland and NSW Forestry Commissions and began working at Crohamhurst Observatory in 1953 as an assistant to Inigo Jones. Lennox learned all he could from Inigo Jones and then developed his own theories on how sunspots affect weather patterns. A combination of these studies, correlated with the particular time of year, provided the basis of his forecasts. Lennox correctly forecast the weather for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. After a period of intense rain, he predicted fine weather for the games – and that’s exactly how it was. He also forecast Cyclone Tracey, which devastated Darwin. At 68, after 41 years of forecasting, Lennox retired and handed the reins over to his son Hayden Walker.

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Hayden Walker

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With a well proven accuracy rate, Hayden has become known as Australia’s most accurate Long Range Weather Forecaster. With a proven accuracy rate of around 80%, Hayden has been successful in predicting many major weather events – such as the cyclones Larry, Yasi, Marcia & Olwyn; flooding to the NSW coast during April 2015 and recent storm activity to QLD and NSW. Furthermore he was the only long range weather forecaster to predict Cyclone Oswald that brought heavy rains to New South Wales and Queensland, especially the floods to Bundaberg.