594 



The National Geographic Magazine 



tation of one gracious lady to another 

 at the afternoon tea. "A fine morning," 

 shouts one teamster to his fellow. The 

 weather plays a most important part 

 in our feelings, and is very often the key 

 of our high spirits or our deep depres- 

 sion. All of us recognize this influence 

 of the weather, and this is probably the 

 reason why every one, of high or low de- 

 gree, be he savage or civilized, passes a 

 remark about the day to whomever he 

 greets. 



But though the weather is the most 

 general subject of conversation ever;y| 

 day in the year, though we hear mor.g 

 remarks about this topic daily than about 

 any other, most of us are absolutely ig- 

 norant of this great, mysterious, fasci- 

 nating force. 



EVERY MAN HIS OWN WEATHER PROPHET 



The Weather Bureau is educating the 

 people to a better comprehension of the 

 weather. It puts forth scientific treatises, 

 of course, but it goes further, and pub- 

 lishes popularly written accounts and in- 

 terpretations of the weather phenomena. 

 These it distributes widely, as far as its 

 appropriation will permit. One of the 

 most valuable educational publications is 

 the daily weather map. The map gives 

 a picture of the snow, the sunshine, the 

 heat, the winds, of the entire country. 

 It tells who are shivering, who are mop- 

 ping their brows, who are carrying um- 

 brellas. By reading the conditions, the 

 movements on the map, we can tell for 

 ourselves when our turn to shiver or 

 swelter will come.* 



The weather map is an instantaneous 

 photograph of the weather of the three 

 million square miles of our United States. 

 This photograph is taken every morning 



* The United States Weather Bureau has re- 

 cently published an interesting little book en- 

 titled "Weather Folklore and Local Weather 

 Signs," by Professor E. B. Garriott, which in 

 simple language gives much information about 

 the weather and the means by which the public 

 may forecast the weather. It contains also a 

 collection of weather proverbs. The book may 

 be obtained from the Weather Bureau (Wash- 

 ington, D. C.) for thirty-five cents. 



at 8 a. m. (75th meridian time) and every 

 evening at 8 p. m. Precisely on the hour 

 an observer at every one of the two hun- 

 dred stations scattered over our states 

 makes his barometric, thermometric, 

 wind, rain, and other observations, and 

 prepares his report for his section. By 

 half-past eight all these reports are speed- 

 ing to Washington, with right of way 

 over all telegraphic business. The ex- 

 perts at Washington on receiving them, 

 at once develop the photograph. 



This map or photograph is the basis of 

 all of the forecasts and of all of the work 

 of the Weather Bureau, and knows no 

 Sunday and no holiday. Washington is 

 the central station from which all the 

 principal forecasts are sent out. From 

 six substations — Chicago, Boston, New 

 Orleans, Denver, San Francisco, and 

 Portland, Oregon — local forecasts are is- 

 sued. The forecasts, made for thirty-six 

 or forty-eight hours, are sent to all the 

 daily papers, morning and afternoon, and 

 are published in every one of our twenty- 

 five hundred daily newspapers. They are 

 also telegraphed to more than two thou- 

 sand principal distributing points, whence 

 they are again telegraphed or telephoned 

 or sent on postal cards to thousands of 

 business exchanges, post-offices, public 

 libraries, etc., where they are posted in 

 prominent places. In the middle West, 

 from Ohio to Nebraska, 600,000 farmers 

 obtain the morning weather forecast by 

 telephone thirty minutes after it is issued. 

 The experiment of sending the forecasts 

 to farmers by rural delivery has been suc- 

 cessfully begun. Already more than 

 100,000 farmers daily receive the weather 

 reports in this way in less than six hours 

 after the forecast is issued. 



By studying the daily weather maps 

 distributed by the Weather Bureau, any 

 one can learn a great deal about the 

 weather, and in a short while can become 

 a fairly good weather prophet. Take the 

 accompan}'ing weather map as an exam- 

 ple. The storm represented on this map 

 was one of the most remarkable that ever 

 swept across the United States. It was 

 born and nursed in the mid-Pacific until 



