THE WEATHER 159 



Often these weather signs agree very well with the 

 indications of the Weather Bureau instruments, but 

 there are many exceptions, which can only be corrected 

 by the wider observations of the Weather Bureau. 

 Still, it is well for everyone to watch the weather signs, 

 particularly in the mountains, where the weather is 

 apt to be very local and out of the range of Weather 

 Bureau stations. 



As has already been said, the falling of the barometer 

 gives the best warning of a coming storm. 



CALIFORNIA WEATHER 



As there are no weather stations out in the Pacific 

 Ocean, we cannot have weather warnings in California 

 as far in advance as in the Eastern states, but only 

 twenty-four to thirty-six hours ahead. Sometimes the 

 storms come to us straight from the sea and surprise us. 



Storms that bring rain to northern and middle 

 California do not always reach to southward of the 

 Tehachapi Mountains, which form a kind of weather 

 divide. But Los Angeles and the rest of southern 

 California sometimes get storms moving from the 

 southwest, known as Sonora storms, and so occasionally 

 have rains in summer. Generally, however, rains stop 

 in California about the beginning of May, and do not 

 return until the middle or end of September, so that 

 there is dry weather during five or six months of the 



