Fallacies About Kansas Weather. 59 



A shoii: time ago the writer made a rather exhaustive study 

 of all the available long precipitation records of the state, 

 some of which, even in the western counties, were begun more 

 than forty years ago, and it was found on comparing the 

 average for the last half of the records with the average for 

 the first half, that in the western third, where the increase in 

 precipitation had been most strenuously maintained, there had 

 been an actual, though slight, decrease in the annual amounts 

 since the records were begun. Some of the other parts of the 

 state showed slight increases and some slight decreases, demon- 

 strating that there is reason to think the change in either di- 

 rection is only temporary and may be reversed within a few 

 years. 



The writer has also investigated a great deal of precipitation 

 data trjing to decide another common belief that, while the 

 total annual precipitation may not be changing as the years 

 pass, there is more and more a tendency for rains to fall 

 oftener and not so much in downpours, but so far the figures 

 fail to bear this out definitely. 



A few years ago a scientist prominent in the state made the 

 announcement that his record of wind velocity, which had been 

 made for many years with a standard type of anemometer, 

 showed that the movement of the wind was decreasing from 

 year to year. The well-known ability and integrity of this 

 man caused his statement to be widely circulated and credited. 

 It was afterwards discovered, however, that as this man, who 

 lived to a ripe old age, became older his anemometer had been 

 more and more neglected and worn, with the result that its 

 record was no longer reliable, and it was registering less wind 

 than really blew. 



The wind record at the various Weather Bureau offices of the 

 state, unfortunately, is of very little value in settling this ques- 

 tion, as it has been necessary so often to change the location 

 of these offices, and it is almost out of the question to compare 

 the records now being obtained with those of previous years ; 

 but there is nothing known to meteorologists that would lead 

 them to believe that the wind velocity over Kansas has changed 

 in the least in the past 500 years. It is true that a person living 

 on the open prairie in a frail shanty would notice the wind 

 more than after he had built a more substantial home and 

 grown trees for a windbreak, but there are no reliable data to 



