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Richard Northcroft Whitaker (born July 15, 1947) is an Australian meteorologist and author. Whitaker is also a presenter on television and radio, following his esteemed thirty-year career as a meteorologist with the Bureau of Meteorology.

Bureau of Meteorology

Whitaker began working with the Bureau of Meteorology in 1971, aged twenty-four. A decade later, he was promoted to the role of Officer in Charge of the Facilities and Information section of the Bureau. He held this position for three years, before being promoted again to Senior Operational Forecaster in the Sydney bureau, Australia's largest.

In 1984 he was presented with an Australia Day Achievement Award for his work in the field of meteorology. In 1992 he became the New South Wales Manager for Special Services, dealing with exceptional cirumstances and disaster recovery operations. He retired from the Bureau in 2002 after thirty-one years.

During the final years of his tenure at the Bureau, between 1999 and 2001 he worked with the World Meteorological Organisation as a rapporteur for the Committee of Agricultural Meteorology.

Revolutionary achievements

Whitaker is credited with the initial development of precipitation charts for the mass media. Such charts are now used throughout print and electronic media to convey data about present and future rainfall.

In his second year at the Bureau of Meteorology, 1972, he developed and authored a manual for aviation forecasting in the state of New South Wales, still used today. Whitaker also researched the correlation between surface temperature in the Pacific Ocean and rainfall in Australia, and published his findings in 1978. His early research played a major part in the discovery of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, which has formed its own division within climatology studies.

Publications and media

Whitaker is a weather presenter and consulting meteorologist on The Weather Channel, having joined the channel in 2004. He also presents on radio Vega FM. Whitaker has authored or co-authored nine books about weather and natural disasters in Australia, stemming from his work with the Bureau of Meteorology (particularly the Special Services unit for the diasters publications).

List of publications

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items.
  • Colls, Keith, Whitaker, Richard (2001). The Australian Weather Book. Sydney, Australia: Reed New Holland. pp. pp. 216. ISBN 1 876334 68 1. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Whitaker, Richard (2004). Firewise, Fire-Safe: How to Survive a Bushfire. Sydney, Australia: Reed New Holland. pp. pp. ?. ISBN 1 877069 16 7. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  • Whitaker, Richard (2005). Australia's Natural Disasters. Sydney, Australia: Reed New Holland. pp. pp. 239. ISBN 1 877069 04 3. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  • Whitaker, Richard (2008). Disasters Events and Moments that Changed the World. Sydney, Australia: Reed New Holland. pp. pp. 272. ISBN 1 741105 63 3. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)

References

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