WEATHER BUREAU. 107 



many business industries is resulting in requests for more special fore- 

 casts and direct service. The calls for such information by telephone 

 and telegrams heavily tax the ability and facilities of the bureau. 

 Many field offices 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 consider- 

 able jDortion of these calls require special consideration and atten- 

 tion. There are nearly 200 field offices to which the public has per- 

 sonal 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 tele- 

 phone 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. 



FRUIT SPRAY AND HARVEST WEATHER FORECASTS. 



This trial forecast service, which has been conducted in New York 

 State in the aid of spraying operations in the apple-growing districts 

 and special forecasts in connection with harvesting, was continued 

 during the past year with the cooperation of the local agriculturists. 

 Ir was necessary to confine the work to practically the same limited 

 areas as last year because of lack of funds, although State organiza- 

 tions arranged to distribute the forecasts in some additional counties 

 without further cost to the Weather Bureau. As heretofore stated, 

 it will not be possible to extend these services to other areas and 

 States and to place the project on as effective basis as its great im- 

 portance justifies until such time as adequate funds are provided 

 therefor. 



HAWAIIAN FORECAST SERVICE. 



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. In the spring of 1923 

 the service was greatly improved through the cooperation of the 

 Navy Department in transmitting to Honolulu daily radio messages 

 containing additional ship reports and current observations from 16 

 stations along the Pacific coast from Alaska to southern California. 

 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 cf more accurate forecasts for the Hawaiian 

 Island district. 



