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The combat information center room of the ocean station patrol cutter Rockaway. 



Keeping a 



weather eye 



out at sea 



One of the big jobs of Coast Guard cut- 

 ters is serving as ocean station vessels. This 

 requires them to cruise for 21 -day periods 

 in areas 10 miles square so that meteorolo- 

 gists can gather on-the-spot data to relay 

 to the Weather Bureau. Forecasts and 

 storm warnings based on such data permit 

 trans-ocean ships and planes to avoid dan- 

 gerous weather conditions, but the cutters 



who do the work have to stick to their 

 posts and ride out the heaviest seas in 

 foulest weather. 



Weather patrols were instituted in 

 1940, when two Coast Guard cutters were 

 assigned to observation stations between 

 Bermuda and the Azores. Before that mer- 

 chant ships had supplied the information, 

 but this had been curtailed when the out- 

 break of the war in Europe forced ships 

 of belligerent nations into radio silence. 



Toward the end of the war there were 

 11 Coast Guard ocean stations in the 

 Atlantic, acting as plane guards and radio 

 beacons as well as watching the weather. 

 These dwindled after the war, so that by 

 1946 there was only one. Five Pacific sta- 

 tions, which the Coast Guard took over 



18 



