OCR Text |
Show PROSPECTS FOR SUMMER VAGUE Whether Cold or Warm, Meteorologist Me-teorologist Refuses to Commit Himself (J. Cecil Alter, State MetcrologiRt) The present cold, late spring season In Utah, which is rather general over thee ontry, has brought forth much conjecture as to Its continuation, and whether we can expect an early return re-turn to normal temperatures and rapid crop growth. Numerous unofficial predictons have been mado that May and June will be cold also, and it is true that these months oCten have been colder than normal following abnormally ab-normally cold Marchs- and Aprils, but this is not necessarily a reliable rule nor a sound basis for forecasting, though it may be a goor gamble. During the past 45 years of official weather reconds at Salt Lake City, March and April combined, have averaged aver-aged 2.00 or raoro colder than average seventeen times, ranging from 2.00 in 1S94 and 1913, to 12.90 below normal in 1917. In 1920 these months totaled 8.30 below normal. Two of these cold March-April periods were followed by practically normal May-June periods; four were followed by abnormally warm May-June periods, amounting to from 1.70 to 4.70 above normal; and eleven were followed by abnormally cold May-Juno periods, ranging from 1.30 to 7.90 colder than normal, and averaging 4.10 below normal. But with no other reason or foundation for making a prediction than these figures, fig-ures, such a forecast must be pure guess work. Though to the actuary or insurance firm aud likewise the agriculturist agri-culturist they may form a safe foundation founda-tion for estimating the degree of risk he Is taking, or with which his business busi-ness is confronted. The fact is, generally speaking, no past record of the weather Is any Indication of what the future weather will bo for there is no connection between be-tween the- past and the future, except as may be, and is usually presented to the forecaster or student of the weather weath-er map for today and yesterday as Indicating In-dicating the probabilities for the im-of im-of a month or a season do not indicate indi-cate the characteristics of any subsequent sub-sequent month or season. Reviewing a mass of compiled literature liter-ature on this subject of periodicities in the weather, Professor Charles F. Marvin, Chief of the Weather Bureau says: "The investigation of the continuity con-tinuity of the different abnormal periods per-iods considered above points to the conclusion that there exists no stable periodic except the annual one. Somo of the periodicities which we find in the Greenwich mean Temperatures appear ap-pear suddenly, hold the field for a time and die away with equal suddenness. It will probably require an investigation investiga-tion of the records extending over several sev-eral centuries to determine any law in the recurrence of the periodicities. The interval of 65 years treated above is far too short to determine this. In tho present state of our knowledge their recurrence appears so arbitrary that even the periodicities derived above (for Greenwich, not for Salt Lake City) can scarcely lead to results re-sults of value in forecasting monthly mean temperatures." |