relation to man," (R. DeC. Ward, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 2nd ed., 1918) contains only a brief presentation of general climatology, excellent though it is as far as it goes. Concerning details of Visher's new book may be mentioned the inadequate and partly inaccurate presentation of 25 "Meteorological Laws" in the introduction. The heating and cooling of the lower air is a much more complex process than merely the result of incoming and outgoing radiation, coupled with the effects of evaporation. Conduction is not mentioned. Another, though perhaps unavoidable, feature in a statement of all general climatology in the form of "laws" is ponderous. Brevity not being always compatible with accuracy, the author has not hesitated to run into intricacies of statement, e. g., "Surface winds commonly blow from colder areas to neighboring warmer areas because warm areas usually have lower air pressure than nearby cooler areas, and winds blow from places of higher air pressure to places of lower air pressure, though at a small angle to the isobars where friction is slight." However, such lengthy statements with their various qualifications are a warning of the intricacies and the limitations of almost anything that may be said in climatology. The wealth of footnote references especially to articles appearing in recent years in available American publications is a valuable part of this useful book. Charles F. Brooks. Clark University. Meteorology. The Science of the Atmosphere. By Charles Fitzhugh Talman. (Popular Science Library, vol. 1). pp. 384. (New York: P. F. Collier and Son.) 1922. Mr. Talman's book approaches more nearly to the conventional treatise, but it makes no attempt to enroll the reader among the professional staff of the U. S. Weather Bureau or to pelt him with formulae. On the other hand, it brings out of the treasures of information of the Bureau library, of which Mr. Talman has been for many years the custodian, facts new and old that the man in the street would not think of looking for, and could not find for himself if he did. It is a series of very readable essays on all sides of meteorological work, the examination of the atmos. phere from bottom to top: clouds, winds, storms, electricity, optics, acoustics, and the application of organized meteorology to agriculture, commerce, navigation of the sea and air, military meteorology with a somewhat sarcastic keynote, medical and physiological meteorology, finishing up with chapters on weather making and atmospheric byways. The illustrations are not all so good as the text; but with a meteorological work illustrations are always a difficulty.-Nature, (London), April 5, 1924, p. 486. The National Southeastern University, Nanking, China, offers courses in Meterology and climatology, as follows: Elem. Meteorology, autumn term, lectures 3 hrs. a week, laboratory 2. Climatology of North America (not given 1924). Coching Chu, Ph.D. (Harvard, 1917), who offers these courses, is head of the Department of Geology and Geography. Dr. Chu has recently published a comprehensive treatment of the climate of Nanking, and from his meteorological observatory issues a detailed monthly weather summary. ? CO-OPERATIVE OBSERVERS' DEPARTMENT Mr. Cola W. Shepard, Co-operative Observer, and Contributing Member of the American Meteorological Society at Colony, in the northeast corner of Wyoming, has sent the Secretary some copies of his weekly newspaper, The Colony News. As would be expected in such a region and with such an editor the weather is given its share of attention in this 8-page newspaper. The issue for August 7, gives the daily maximum and minimum temperatures and the rainfall for the past week, and includes a discussion of July weather. The month just closed was 2.7° F. cooler than the average and much rainier. The highest temperature was 94, while 108 has been observed in this month (1917). The total rainfall was 3.29 inches as against an average of 2.68. Crop prospects were fine, notwithstanding the total to Aug. 1 having been but 9.97 inches N! since Jan. 1, as against an average of 12.20 for this period. "This shows that it is not so much the amount of rainfall that counts as it is the time and manner of its falling. The average annual rainfall (last 10 years) at Colony was 17.97 inches. While the general coolness and wetness are making amends for the heavy losses of live stock sustained in the hard winter 1923-24, local storms have brought severe damage over small areas." On Aug. 15, in close succession two terrific hailstorms swept through northeastern Wyoming on practically the same path, several miles wide. The second storm covered more than 80 miles from Ridge, Montana, to Vale, South Dakota. In the first, hail fell for 18 minutes, and in the second for 16 minutes. The hailstones in the second storm ranged from the size of hens' eggs down, and covered the ground 4 to 6 inches deep many places. Crops, game, jack rabbits succumbed. Roofs were riddled and people knocked down. Automobilists had to seek shelter by lying in the icy water under their cars. Aug. 17 another hailstorm became a tornado. Aug. 20 still another hailstorm passed. The precipitation for the week was 1.95 inches-all with hail. in Private as well as U. S. Bureau Weather observations are being broadcasted. Clifford L. Davis, Worcester, Mass., rainfall observer for the associated rain insurance companies, has a very well equipped weather station. His latest addition has been one of the new Fergusson recording weighing raingages. When the Sherer Company's radio broadcasting station WDBH was opened recently, Mr. Davis began supplying his morning and evening weather observations for the twice daily broadcasting: barometer, 7 a. m. and 7 p. m., also mean for 24 hours; air temperature, maximum, minimum, 7 a. m. and 7 p. m., and mean for 24 hours; relative humidity, precipitation, and weather conditions, 7 a. m. and 7 p. m. The observations are also published in a local newspaper. Dr. A. W. Forman, of White Hall, Ill., reports that on Aug. 24, 1924, between 5 and 5.30 a. m., there was a thunderstorm unique in the fre quency of its lightning. He says: "The reports were so rapid that the flash from a preceding one would still be visible until the following one had exploded, if that term may be used. Certainly no one with whom I have talked pretends that he ever witnessed anything like this one. But the curious thing about it was that it did no harm." was 1.17 inches. The rainfall Lightning striking the roadbed of a principal street in Worcester, Mass., Aug. 6, smashed to pieces several lengths of newly laid 20-inch cast iron gas main buried 3 to 42 feet down. Where the bolt hit a great crater was dug, but the broken pipe did not explode and not till the ditch was re-excavated was the great amount of damage realized. No gas had entered the main, though there may have been a little water in it. The flash of this lightning stroke was very intense, and its thunder was extremely heavy, as heard 200 yards away. A photograph of the broken pipe was published in the Worcester Evening Gazette for August 15, 1924. A railroad train was bodily overturned by a windstorm in India a short time ago. Earliest Snows With the "earliest snows this season" being reported from the northern mountain states and the north Atlantic states during September, the following report of snow July 2 should be entered for its priorty claim. It was kindly clipped from the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Journal-Gazette, for July 3, 1924, by Prof. C. R. Dryer. WABASH, July 2.-A story that eclipses all the wildest proverbial fish stories is a snow story, told by S. B. Dawes, only this time Mr. Dawes had convincing evidence of the truth of his tale. On a farm at the edge of Rich Valley, directly west of Wabash, snow fell this morning to a depth of eight inches, in a patch of field which measures approximately 20x20 feet square. The snow seemed to come, Mr. Dawes reported, directly from a funnel-shaped cloud, which was' seen by many citizens here. It fell on the farm owned by Earl Campbell, of Rich Valley. To prove his snow story, Mr. Dawes gathered a snowball, and hurried into Wabash with it. The snowball, until it melted was on display in the Wabash County Loan & Trust Company bank here. Mr. Dawes said that Mr. Campbell measured the snow and knows it to have been eight inches deep, in the patch. All around the vicinity hail fell, so that it could be shoveled up, in places. Capt. B. J. Sherry, has three pilot balloon stations in operation on the Isthmus of Panama-two on the Atlantic and one on the Pacific side. The recent spectacular dawn-to-dusk flight across the country by Lieut. Russell L. Maughan was made in spite of the handicap of almost constant contrary winds. International air races are to be held at Dayton, Ohio, Oct. 2-4, 1924. Kansas Grasshopper Stops a Rainfall Record Recording self-registering rain-gages fail for various reasons at times, but probably one of the most unusual causes for a failure was a grass O WE hopper at Topeka, Kans., during the early morning of Aug. 4, 1924. The grasshopper, "who hailed from somewhere in Kansas," came down with the rain. Slipping backwards down the funnel of the gage the grasshopper's hind legs reached the tipping bucket below, and held it so that no automatic record was made of the shower of nearly two-tenths of an inch.-B. R. Laskowski. NOTES FROM THE WEATHER BUREAU 100,000 Telephone Calls Follow Hurricane Warnings Rapidly increasing utilization of weather information by many business industries is resulting in requests for more special forecasts and direct service, reports the Weather Bureau of the United States Department of Agriculture. The calls for such information by telephone and telegrams heavily tax the ability and facilities of the bureau. Many field officers respond to a hundred or more telephone calls a day under normal weather conditions and several times as many when unusual or destructive conditions are indicated. A considerable portion of these calls require special consideration and attention. There are nearly 200 field offices to which the public has personal and telephonic access, and the volume of special service that is given by this means alone is enormous. These calls come for the most part from business men whose interests are affected in one way or another by the weather. One incident will illustrate the extent to which the telephone is used in serving the people by direct contact. Announcement had been made by the Weather Bureau of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico which was approaching the Texas coast. The manager of the telephone company in one of the coast cities reported that during the 24 hours succeeding the warning slightly more than 200,000 telephone connections were made through his office, of which number more than 100,000 were for weather information. It was necessary to assign seven operators in addition to the regular force to handle the calls. Flood Warnings of Weather Bureau Save Livestock Reported flood losses during the year ending June 30, 1923, totaled $36,591,362, while the value of portable property saved by flood warnings was given in admittedly incomplete returns as $4,240,465, according to the Weather Bureau of the United States Department of Agriculture. The outstanding floods of the year were those in the Arkansas River from eastern Kansas to the mouth, the Neosho River of Kansas and Oklahoma, and the Cimarron and North Canadian Rivers of Oklahoma. Four weeks of almost continuous and frequently excessive rains brought about these floods, and the crest stages were, as a rule, higher than any previously recorded. Coming as they did at a season of matured wheat and growing corn and other crops, and covering in southeastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma alone nearly 300,000 acres of highly productive lands, the floods caused loss and damage, very incompletely reported, to the value of $27,884,200, of which by far the greater portion - was in crops matured and prospective. During the great Mississippi Valley floods of 1922 the total losses as reported were $17,087,790, nearly $11,000,000 less than in the Arkansas and Canadian Valley floods, but the former flood came before the planting season had well set in, and, furthermore, the lands were protected by high levees. No flood warnings, however accurate and timely, can prevent loss of crops and damage to fixed property, but movable property, especially livestock, can be secured, and during this Arkansas Valley flood livestock and other property to the value of $1,350,000 were reported as having been saved by the flood warnings of the Weather Bureau. Larger But Fewer Stations Send Weather News by Radio To meet popular demands the information sent out by the Weather Bureau of the United States Department of Agriculture by radiophone from several stations has been amplified, and now includes river forecasts and stages, conditions of highways as affected by the weather, effect of weather on crops, weather reports from the principal crop areas, and special forecasts for the guidance of farmers in harvesting. Co-operation with a number of small stations with limited range has been discontinued and several large and more powerful stations added. In many cases forecasts for several States are now broadcast from a single station. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of receiving-set owners who receive the forecasts by radiophone, large numbers of whom can obtain them in no other way, many repeat them to their neighbors by telephone. This latter form of service has become so potential that arrangements are in hand for a definite form of organization which may replace the telegraphing of forecast messages now sent to centers for distribution. It is expected that more effective service will be accomplished thereby and that considerable economy will result. Shipping Board Reports by Radio to Weather Bureau According to instructions issued by the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation, all masters of Shipping Board vessels are required to take weather observations daily at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., 75th meridian time (noon and midnight Greenwich mean time), except when in port. These observations are recorded on forms supplied by the Weather Bureau of the United States Department of Agriculture. When they are taken in the North Atlantic or North Pacific Ocean north of latitude 10° N., and more than 100 miles from the coast, they are transmitted in code by wireless to the Weather Bureau as a rule through the nearest naval radio station. Ships that do not have continuous radio service are authorized to transmit only one observation a day, instead of two. In the case of vessels on trans-Atlantic routes and out of range of the United States naval radio stations, the messages are forwarded by way of the French naval radio station at Brest to the French Meteorological Service in Paris. The latter broadcasts the reports for the benefit of shipping of all nations, and also repeats them to the Weather Bureau by special radio message. In addition to the observations taken at the hours above mentioned, vessel masters are expected to take special observations whenever unusual conditions exist and there are indications of a severe storm or hurricane. Hawaiian Forecast Work Improved The Hawaiian forecast service has been greatly improved this year through the co-operation of the Navy Department in transmitting to Honolulu daily radio messages containing ship reports and current observations from 16 stations along the Pacific coast from Alaska to southern California. These supplement the forecasts issued by the Weather Bureau of the United States Department of Agriculture from Honolulu. Since 1918, forecasts have been issued at Honolulu for the benefit of shipping in waters contiguous to the Hawaiian Islands. This service, although handicapped because of paucity of ship reports on which the forecasts largely were based, was very successful and met with commendation from marine interests. These additional reports, together with those from Midway Island, have enabled the Honolulu forecaster to chart general barometric-pressure distributions and weather conditions in the Pacific Ocean east of the one hundred and seventieth meridian and have greatly facilitated the issuing of more accurate forecasts for the Hawaiian Island district. |
