METEOROLOGICAL ANALYSIS IN THE MIDDLE LATITUDES 
By V. J. OLIVER 
U. S. Weather Bureau, Washington, D.C. 
and M. B. OLIVER 
Washington, D.C. 
Introduction 
Fundamentally there are two diverse analytical ap- 
proaches to the treatment of data representing synoptic 
meteorological situations. One is the research approach. 
Here time is of no great consequence in the selection of 
the processing techniques to be considered in the anal- 
ysis. The other approach is that of the synoptic mete- 
orologist constrained by the exigent demands of time 
to select that part of the vast array of existent raw data 
and charts which may be assimilated expeditiously. The 
particular elements chosen must combine to give, with 
the greatest dispatch, the most accurate delineation of 
the meteorological complex. Limited time is, in effect, 
the crux of the problems present in daily synoptic 
analysis. 
The analytical techniques selected for daily synoptic 
practice stem in reality from the methods formulated 
in the course of meteorological research, although it is 
frequently necessary to modify these methods to attain 
a maximum economy of the time and effort of synoptic 
analysts. Selection of analytical procedures must always 
be made with an eye toward comprehensiveness com- 
bined with operational simplicity. With these criteria as 
a basis the authors will attempt to present here a 
eritique of the principal synoptic analytical practices. 
In view of the significance of the whole problem of 
analysis it is well not only to review the techniques of 
analysis used at present and in the past, but also to 
attempt to appraise the meteorological research cur- 
rently being pursued, estimating the measure to which 
each relevant scientific disclosure fulfills the funda- 
mental requirements of daily synoptic analysis. Al- 
though an attempt will be made here to review the 
present and past analytical techniques in some detail, 
it is feasible to consider but a few examples of mete- 
orological research with the purpose of evaluating the 
applications of such research to daily synoptic practice. 
During the past twenty years, weather map analysis 
in the United States has undergone two major changes 
in technique. The first was the result of the adoption 
by United States meteorologists of the frontal technique 
of separating air masses of different properties. This 
classical system of analytical procedure, first suggested 
by the Norwegians [4], has been covered elsewhere in 
papers by Bergeron and Bjerknes. Their methods, now 
utilized by most meteorologists, satisfactorily delineate 
a large portion of the meteorologically significant 
motions of the atmosphere and ascribe, at least tacitly, 
the related weather phenomena to these causative 
motions. With the establishment of a network of upper- 
air soundings, the second major change in analytical 
procedure evolved: upper-air analysis, as an adjunct to 
Norwegian frontal technique, augmented the scope of 
meteorology by rendering the analysis systematically 
three dimensional. 
Today the application of electronics to meteorology, 
including such adaptations as radar and sferics, portends 
a third progressive development in the field of analysis. 
The implications of a portion of these studies will be 
examined subsequently. But here it will suffice to say 
that the changes induced by electronics are far from 
reaching their full fruition, although exceptional ad- 
vances have been made along these lines in the few 
short years since the use of electronics became wide- 
spread. 
Paralleling the advances in the technical phases of 
analytical procedures, there has been a trend toward a 
new type of organization for meteorological analysis, an 
organization which permits of the more productive use 
of time in the field stations by eliminating duplication of 
effort. This trend has culminated in the rise of analysis 
centers and the transmission of charts by facsimile 
reproduction. It seems likely that the future will see an 
even greater specialization of meteorological personnel 
and a concomitant concentration of analytical work. 
Eventually we may even see in concrete form the now 
visionary picture of a fully automatic analysis center, 
in which the observational data are fed directly into a 
machine which will sort and evaluate them, with the 
resultant analysis proceeding without an intermediary 
into a vast electronic and mechanical “‘forecaster.”’ The 
first rudimentary approaches to this type of analysis are 
being made by Panofsky [15] at New York University. 
But the distance to the ultimate goal is so great that 
in this paper we shall confine our discussion to mete- 
orological centers operated by human beings. Granted 
even this limitation, we find that the importance of 
analysis centers cannot be fully actualized until there 
are improvements not only in the field of meteorology, 
but also in the field of weather communication. 
Up to the present time the facsimile method of 
transmitting analyses has been the only technique of 
communication that has been put into operation which 
obviates the need for personnel to plot the incoming 
information at the receiving station. Such a method is 
commendably in line with the trend toward centraliza- 
tion and economy of human effort, but the particular 
facsimile method in use at this time has various draw- 
backs. In particular, it is too slow, and it cannot be 
used to transmit color. Moreover, the data as repro- 
715 
