Meteorological station

“ It can safely be said that we could not have got a better man for the handling of all the radio weather news which came to hand. He was untiring in trying to pick up and read communications which were very weak, coming from far distant stations, and it was, thanks to him, that the weather forecasting station at King’s Bay was able to work with nearly the same full range of meteorological observations as any southern weather forecasting station. ”

“ But his practical sense came to his help, and he engaged a large number of private persons to erect stations where daily observations might be taken—at most of them without pay, and also at many without instruments except such as were privately furnished. In this way our country has been planted with not less than two hundred minor meteorological stations. ”

“ Not for over a century was the first thoroughgoing attempt made at systematic observation. There was a meteorological section in the Academy of Sciences at Mannheim from 1763, and subsequently a separate society for meteorology. In 1783, the Academy published observations from 39 stations, those from the central station comprising data from the hygrometer, wind vane (but not anemometer) , rain gauge, evaporimeter, and apparatus for geomagnetism and atmospheric electricity, as well as data from the thermometer and barometer. ”

“ In response to an invitation made by the Chief Signal Officer, eighty-nine agricultural 495societies and thirty-eight boards of trade and chambers of commerce have appointed meteorological committees to coöperate and correspond with the Signal Bureau. The observing stations now number eighty-five. New stations are constantly being added. The station at Mount Washington is six thousand two hundred and ninety feet above the level of the sea. Other mountain-stations are to be established for the purpose of making observations upon the varying meteorological phenomena of different altitudes. ”

“ Flocks of birds, at this season, flying across our city in search of a more congenial home, tell us of approaching winter. Not relying on such indications alone, the Government has established everywhere meteorological stations; weather forecasts are distributed broadcast, wireless telegraphy flashes out the approach of devastating storms, thus forewarning navigation and securing protection to citizens and property and life. ”

“ It is from similar maps that forecasts of storms are still framed, and suitable warnings issued; and a mass of information is being collected by telegraph from sixty stations in the British Islands, &c., of the state of the weather at eight o’clock every morning, and analysed and arranged at the Meteorological Office in London for the evening’s forecasts over the different districts of the country. A juster knowledge is being now acquired of those great atmospheric movements, and other changes, which form the groundwork of weather-forecasting. ”

“ The exposure of meteorological apparatus so that the records from different stations on the earth's surface and from vessels on the ocean and from kites or balloons in the atmosphere shall be comparable with each other offers many difficult problems, but the progress toward uniformity throughout the world has been appreciable during the past twenty-five years. Every first-class weather service now keeps close watch of the condition of its apparatus and the correctness of the methods in vogue at its stations. ”

“ The artificial temperature of a city street is too local and indefinite a thing to be inscribed on weather maps, utilized by the forecaster, or embodied in climatic statistics. As a concession, however, to the demand of the “man in the street” for a record of conditions prevailing in his own sphere,75 the Weather Bureau has installed in several cities little pavilions in which working meteorological instruments are displayed for the benefit of the public. ”

“ The development of wireless telegraphy since 1900 has even made it possible for isolated ships at sea to exchange weather telegrams, compile daily maps and study surrounding storms. One by one every civilized nation has established either a weather bureau or a meteorological office, or a bureau of hydrography and marine meteorology, or an elaborate establishment for aerial explorations according as its special interests demanded. ”

“ It is also to be understood that meteorology is taught in all other schools of agriculture, navigation, commerce and technology, as well as in military and naval academies. At the Central Meteorological Observatory a temporary school is opened every year for the training of meteorological observers at provincial stations. ”

“ The Observatory operates a range of weather monitoring equipment, including a territory-wide network of automatic weather stations for measuring wind, pressure, temperature, humidity and rainfall, a network of cameras and visibility meters for providing real-time weather photos and visibility readings, a lightning location network for detecting lightning and two Doppler weather radars for detecting the intensity and movement of rain areas. The Observatory also exchanges real-time data with other meteorological centres worldwide and receives cloud pictures from a variety of weather satellites. ”

“ It is an evidence of the zeal in America to advance the young science of meteorology, that the first mountain-top station in the world was established in 1871 upon Mount Washington, and that both this exposed post of observation, 6300 feet above the sea, and the one more than twice as high on Pike's Peak, which was for a long time the highest in the world, were maintained for many years by the United States Signal Service. ”

“ We have instituted geological surveys of many of our States and much of our Territories, and have been rewarded not merely by manifold local benefits, but also by the higher honor of extending very greatly the boundaries of that noble science. At an enormous annual cost we have maintained a meteorological-signal system, which I think is not equaled and certainly is not surpassed in the world. ”

“ Considering that—judging from the forecasts published daily in the newspapers—the chances of a successful forecast are on the average about seventy-nine per cent. for ordinary weather, while the percentage of successes is slightly higher in the case of storm warnings, it is evident that the Meteorological Office is capable of rendering important service to the community at large. Every morning, the central office in London receives telegraphic reports from fifty-three stations. ”

“ Before the close of the nineteenth century nearly all the civilized countries of the world, including many colonial possessions, such as Canada, Australia, Algeria and the Philippines, had established meteorological services, entailing more or less extensive arrangements for collecting daily reports by telegraph and issuing storm warnings and weather forecasts. ”

“ Besides its office in Washington, where more than two hundred persons are constantly employed, the Weather Bureau has about two hundred stations, manned by professional meteorologists and observers. One of these will be found in almost every large city, while some are in towns of very modest importance. A regular Weather Bureau station is well worth a visit. The instrumental equipment of these stations is almost superhuman in the accuracy with which it sets down on paper the chronicle of weather happenings from day to day and from moment to moment. ”

“ At some of these stations observations have been made regularly, once, twice or three times a day, for 100 or 150 years. In round numbers one may say that, during the last few decades, meteorological observations have been made, the world over, at the rate of ten million a year, and the total number, since the keeping of regular weather records began, runs far up in the hundred millions. ”

“ Most civilized countries possess official services for the observation and prediction of weather, though no other is organized on quite so grandiose a scale as ours. The British Meteorological Office, the Prussian Meteorological Institute, the Central Meteorological Bureau of France, and the Central Physical Observatory of Petrograd are among the leading institutions of this character in the Old World. Admirable weather services also exist in India, Japan, Australia, Canada, Argentina and elsewhere. ”

“ The levellings made for railways will also furnish the desired information. Failing both these, the observer should select two or more of the stations nearest his locality for which official Meteorological Reports are published daily in the Times and other journals; and taking observations of his barometer at 8 a.m., for a few weeks, should compare them with the mean of the observations at those stations. The comparison should be omitted when the barometer pressure is not steady. ”

“ Besides keeping up these routine observations, the observer keeps a record of fog encountered at any hour of the day and makes detailed reports on storms. Many marine observers also report observations at stated hours by wireless telegraphy.
The enormous fund of information thus collected over the ocean is applied to several purposes besides the construction of Pilot Charts. Our Weather Bureau and certain foreign meteorological institutions prepare daily charts, showing approximately the instantaneous conditions over great oceanic areas, especially the North Atlantic. ”

“ A central meteorological institute, under the Minister of Marine, is to be the centre for meteorological, magnetic and other physical researches, and observations are to be made at all marine and military establishments in the various provinces, on the upper Amazon, in Uruguay, and on all subsidized government steamers. ”

“ At the office of the Weather Bureau in Washington there is a [Pg 2] meteorological library of some thirty-five thousand volumes. But meteorological libraries are rare; meteorological books are scarce in other libraries; and meteorologists are so uncommon that whoever declares himself one is likely to be asked, "What is a meteorologist?"
The "meteors" studied by the meteorologist are not shooting stars, but the phenomena of the atmosphere,—rain and snow, cloud and fog, wind and sunshine, and whatever else enters into the composition of weather and climate. ”

“ Self-registering instruments are now the rule at important meteorological observatories and stations, though they do not, even yet, record all the elements of weather, and at a host of minor stations none of them have yet replaced the eye of the observer. ”

“ When two equal drops of rain fall into a current of air at points where the velocity is not the same, one drop will either approach toward or recede from the other, and the quantity of rain falling on the space beneath will be increased or diminished. The large rainfall registered at the Signal-Service station on Mount Washington has recently been specially investigated. Four extra gauges, three inches in diameter, were set up seventy-five feet respectively north, east, south, and west from the station-gauge. ”

“ Some people are disposed to laugh at the forecasts made, but in the main they are very trustworthy.
Rain gauges and solar thermometers, Kew.
It is never possible to be quite sure what will happen at any one spot, but over a district the readings of the barometer afford the practised meteorologist a fairly accurate idea of what is coming, and it is worthy of note that the failures, or partial failures, in the prophecies during a year are considerably less than 20 per cent. On the coast the prognostications of the Meteorological Office have been of immense service. ”

“ As the Committee of the Scottish Meteorological Society recently said, "This truly cosmopolitan work, which the United States are alone in a position to undertake, thanks to the liberality and enterprise of their Government, will bring before us month by month the general circulation of the earth's atmosphere, and raise if it does not satisfy many inquiries lying at the very root of meteorology, and intimately affecting those atmospheric changes which meteorologists have been recording." ”

“ This hand-book constitutes the second volume of the report of the Signal Service for 1885. It aims to present the principles of meteorological science and their applications as they have been developed up to this time, for the use of students, and especially for the purposes of a text-book to be used in the Signal-Service school of instruction at Fort Meyer, Virginia. The effort has been made to select, from the material on hand, that which bears most usefully upon practical meteorology. ”

“ When the whole apparatus was in working order we could receive meteorological despatches from nearly all the stations. The network of stations is closest in Europe, so close that we often saved work by making a choice of stations. Asia and America have not such a close net, but even here it is possible to draw a weather chart which is largely correct.
THE COURSE OF THE SHIPS ON WATCH, “FRAM” AND “HOBBY,” DURING THE COURSE OF THE EXPEDITION
The dotted area indicates the pack ice. ”

“ Few sciences perhaps will yield so important practical results as meteorology is likely to do at some future date—a fact, or rather an already partly realised expectation, which has won general recognition, as is shown by the large sums which in all civilised countries have been set apart for establishing meteorological offices and for encouraging meteorological research. ”

“ The rainfall is more evenly distributed through the year at Western coast stations than it is at Eastern or dry stations, or it may be put in this way:—The heaviest of heavy falls, say in twenty-four hours, at a wet station, will not amount to 6 per cent. of the annual total, whilst at a dry station a heavy fall may amount to 10, 12, or 14 per cent. ”