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Show FORECASTING ST0RMS,lR0STSMDa00M ( i y, "-K -X v i 1 - 1 t ""'i - . I . - - . , -i k V ! fj J.lZA Vhv. certainly, help your- I tl' " H' i yV ifW' fl If IJ self, glad to kurv n u sr ; t T 7 or a:iyti int; else you w ish. V... S.,, . v. I'hat's about u liat you would say to V - 9'J storm is anvone who stepped up to you on o in tracing the track of a Uie street with a knowing air and de- 4 t applied iu determining the arm llvered himse'.f of the above quota- X i's " y J frosts. , . ,, Lion. There would be just a chance ' f Flood forecasts are made in much that he was kidding if he pulled it - the same way. Information as. to t verballv, but if he sent it to sou via WfArHfi? HJTf amount of rainfall at the head waters wireless-well, there would be but rlJr of streams that cause floods are cov- Dno answer, 'bughouse." . ered hv telegraphic reports sent py r. ON 1-KI.KV. 1 ' 111 fVj ,ea:Man, fn . d h 1 IN; i-1 Why, certainly, help your-'jlj your-'jlj self, glad to know you, sir, 7 or anything else you wish. I'hat's about what you would say to anyone who stepped up to you on Uie street with a knowing air and delivered de-livered himself of the above quotation. quota-tion. There would be just a chance that he was kidding if he pulled it verbally, but if he sent it to ou via wireless well, there would be but Dno answer, "bughouse." At least that would be your nat- jral surmise, and you little know how i w rong you would be. For instance, j the government weather bureau at Washington receives just such messages mes-sages every day in the year. And the weather bureau men know that these apparently "dippy" messages are really an important part of a great ind intricate system which Uncle Sam supports to tell the people of .ho United States what the day i iolng to bring forth in the matter of weather. As a matter of fact, "Colic, Dalmatian," Dalma-tian," etc.. when translated, signifies that the steamer Monterey is saying that at 7:00 a. m. on the seventh of the month, she is in latitude 22 degrees de-grees 52 minutes; that the barometer is 30.04, the temperature SO; that the wind is northeast, blowing 1-1 miles an hour, and that the sky is clear. Rather an original and unique way of saying it, is it not? It is a mighty slick little organization, organiza-tion, this weather bureau of the department de-partment of agriculture. It keeps a small army of experts busy from seven o'clock in the morning until midnight every day in the year keeping keep-ing track of just what Old Man Weather Is up to, cataloguing all his idiosyncrasies and doping out what new caper he is about to cut up. No ghost of an atmospheric disturbance, dis-turbance, no storm wraith or cold wave apparition can stalk abroad in any cranny of the states, nowadays, without being instantly pounced upon by the nearest bureau, and its would- be secret maneuvers spread broadcast broad-cast to other stations that they may expect its coming and set in lrption their machinery for doping out the; exact time of its appearance. I Tr only comparatively recent W " ..as efficiency of the went)- that the enhanced by "J1,e s?.'-5er bureau was thedeT----' mJ arrangement between ItSwJl?nient and many of the big steamship lines to send semi-dally weather reports from vessels at sea beyond a distance of 75 miles from port. Many people have an idea that there is something mysterious and occult about the work of the weather bureau in forecasting the coming of storms, frosts and floods. Not a few think that the observers must necessarily neces-sarily get their data by reading the planets, the stars and the moon. As a matter of fact the forecaster of the bureau foretells the coming of disturbances disturb-ances in a businesslike way, very similar simi-lar to that in which a man who has ordered a shipment of goods would estimate the date of its arrival. Suppose a business man had ordered or-dered a carload of pineapples from the Hawaiian islands. He would know the average time it would take the steamer to make the trip to the Pa-I Pa-I cific port, the average time for unloading un-loading and loading into refrigerator cars, and the average number of days to be allowed these cars for their trip across the continent to New York. His estimate, however, would be subject sub-ject to error, because the steamship might be delayed by fog. or the cars might meet with an accident. Storms, like1 pineapples, as a rule do not originate In the UDited States. They come to us. some from the Philippines, Phil-ippines, Japan. Siberia, Alaska, Canada Cana-da or the Gulf of Mexico. The weather weath-er bureau gets cable, telegraphic or wireless notice of a foreign storm. Station after station, or vessel after vessel reports the storm's arrival In its neighborhood, so that the genera! direction and rate of progress can be determined very early. In fact, the arrival of some storms can be foretold fore-told ten days In advance. The forecasters watch for the region re-gion of low barometer, which Is the storm center around which the winds blow. This whirl or eddy moves bodily bod-ily forward with the general eastward drift of about 650 miles a day In our latitudes. As the lines of equal pressure pres-sure (isobars) around the low center crowd closer together, the winds attending at-tending the storm increase iu force. The forecaster determines the direction direc-tion of movement of the storm and its velocity. When weather disturbances are reported, re-ported, the forecasters know from experience ex-perience about how long It takes them to reach our Pacific coast, and then how long after they will reach the Atlantic coast. For example, if a storm coming from Siberia drifts eastward east-ward around the North pole and reappears re-appears in Alaska, it should appear in Washington and Oregon in about two days; should get to the great lakes in six days and to the Atlantic coast in seven or eight days. Unexpected conditions may delay storms or divert them from the straight track just as a refrigerator car may be thrown off its schedule or be shipped by accident on a wrong road. Some of these storms deplete themselves by running into regions of high barometer which are of greater great-er magnitude and extent than the storm itself. Some of them, however, travel completely around the world. To keep tab on cold waves that come into the United States from Canada and Alaska, the weather bureau bu-reau studies the Canadian weather reports. re-ports. England sends reports frm jeli- the Brit,'-1, r. - RWii .- .air.N. 'an islands and continental conti-nental Europe, and daily reports come from St. Petersburg on the conditions in Russia and Siberia. The same businesslike system used t,o trick of a storm 19 in tracing the tracK ui applied in determining the arrival of f' Flood forecasts are made in much the same way. Information as. to the amount of rainfall at the head waters of streams that cause floods are covered cov-ered by telegraphic reports sent by local observers. As this rain reaches the main channel,' the height of the water in the channel is determined by successive gauging stations. Past records establish how much a height say of 20 feet at Dubuque, Iowa, will produce at Daveuport, another station SO miles down the Mississippi. This plan is followed all the way down the river, and at each point full allowance allow-ance is made for the effects of water from tributaries, and from additional and local rainfall. As a result of these observations in the recent flood, the people of Cairo had warning a week or ten days in advance. The Pittsburgh district can be given only 12 to 24 hours' notice, because a flood is upon them within 24 hours after a heavy rainstorm. To carry on this work of forecasting forecast-ing storms, frosts and floods, there are established throughout the United States 200 branch bureaus, each with apparatus for measuring rainfall, wind, etc., and with a circulating system sys-tem of information between them that twice every 24 hours swaps observations, observa-tions, each with the other 199. Briefly, forecasting of the modern school is resolved into watching the course of great disturbances and calculating cal-culating their probable movements and the time it will take- them to cover given distances. But then there is a good deal of the forecaster's forecast-er's work more subtle than this. For instance, it recently has been discovered discov-ered that there is a remarkable interplay inter-play between atmospheric phenomena in widely separated regions. The state of the barometer in Siberia in winter is found to be related in an intimate, way to the existence . and progress ofBtoru?""1 1 J ..uts cjnileth" States at the same time. And now the modern forecasters are reaching out into other continents for their storm warnings and prognostications. |