THE WORK OF THE WEATHER BUREAU. 



BY THEODORE WATERS. 



[Theodore Waters, author and lecturer; born Philadelphia, April 10, 1870; educated 

 in the public schools of that city and privately; after several years' work as a con- 

 tributor to newspapers and magazines he became editor of the McClure Syndicate in 

 1S97; press secretary for the University of Pennsylvania, 1900; associate editor 

 Everybody's, 1904; Pearson's magazine, 1905; is press secretary for the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science. Author of Six Weeks of Beggardom, 

 The Profession of Getting Hurt, etc.] 



If you could be perched high above the north pole, and 

 with an all seeing eye could gaze upon the general atmospheric 

 condition of the northern hemisphere, you would see a pano- 

 ramic succession of storms and fair weather sweeping around 

 the earth in one direction as regularly as the hands of a clock. 

 The intensity of the succession might be marred here and there 

 by eddies, but even the eddies would be found to have laws 

 of their own. Those of January would be typical of that 

 month, and would take typical courses. So would those of 

 every other month, and the paths marked out by these storms 

 would be followed accurately year by year. These details 

 would have special lines of conduct, just as planets have in- 

 dividualities, but they would be found subservient to a great 

 general movement, just as the planets all together revolve 

 around the sun. 



You must assume this north pole attitude when consider- 

 ing the weather. It is impossible to analyze a rainstorm with 

 an umbrella above your head. You must get above the rain- 

 storm. This is the keynote of the United States weather 

 service. 



The forecast room of the weather bureau is long and 

 wide. Down its center extends a double line of standing 

 desks, placed back to back. Men are working at these desks, 

 and the forecaster stands at the head of the line. A teleg- 

 rapher is clicking a Morse instrument in one corner of the 

 room, and a man is distributing odd looking type at a case 

 in another corner. On the wall is an immense map of North 

 America — twelve feet long by eight feet high. The states, 



390 



