54 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII. No. 550. 



CURRENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY. 



baro:meter and weather. 

 Under the title ' Barometer und Wetter,' 

 van Bebber discusses, in the Archiv der 

 Deutschen Seewarte (Vol. XXVII., 1904, No. 

 2, pp. 1-15), the use of the barometer as a 

 ' weather glass,' for foretelling changes of 

 weather; refers to the studies already made to 

 determine the barometer readings which corre- 

 spond to certain weather conditions, and then 

 investigates the relation between the readings 

 at Hamburg and the rainfall, temperature 

 and cloudiness, for the year, seasons and indi- 

 vidual months during the period 1876-1900. 

 It appears that rain falls very infrequently 

 when the barometer is very high; that it is 

 then extremely light, and comes only in the 

 colder months. Rain probability shows a 

 steady increase with decreasing pressure ; at 

 extremely high pressures (over 30.50 ins.) 

 there is no precipitation, and at pressures be- 

 low about 28.90 ins. there is always precipita- 

 tion. As to temperatures, the departures are 

 negative at the higher pressures and positive 

 at the lower, when averaged for the year. At 

 low pressures the departures are positive in 

 winter and negative in summer. Cloudiness 

 is at a minimum during highest barometric 

 pressure, and at a maximum during low pres- 

 sure. In winter, however, high pressures are 

 usually accompanied by fog. In Central 

 Europe most of the precipitation of the colder 

 months comes with falling, and of the warmer 

 months with rising pressure, while in the 

 British Isles and over the North Sea area it 

 comes with falling pressure in all seasons. 

 The critical study of these relations of pres- 

 sure and weather conditions, which are set 

 forth numerically in his paper, leads van 

 Bebber to the conclusion that a reasonably 

 accurate judgment of existing and coming 

 weather can be based on the readings of the 

 barometer, especially when the location of 

 the cyclonic and anti-cyclonic centers can be 

 learned from the newspaper reports. The last 

 paragraph in the article is a quotation from a 

 publication by the same author, dated 1899, 

 to this effect : An experience of twenty-five 

 years has brought Dr. van Bebber to the con- 

 clusion that no reorganization of weather ser- 



vice work would be of any value if the present 

 forecasts for a single day following are ad- 

 hered to. These forecasts have not satisfied 

 the agricultural interests and will not satisfy 

 them in the future. Nor will the forecasts 

 be satisfactory unless the general public un- 

 derstands better than at present the basis on 

 which weather predictions rest. 



Dr. van Bebber's work along the line of 

 public education in weather types, and what 

 these types means has been a most valuable 

 one, and the present investigation, which 

 might well be carried on for any number of 

 American stations, is a useful extension of his 

 previous studies. 



MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW: ANNUAL SUMMARY, 

 1904. 



The value of back numbers of the Monthly 

 Weatlier Review has in the past been very 

 much decreased by the fact that an adequate 

 index has not been prepared for each volume. 

 The index hitherto published has been an au- 

 thor index, arranged alphabetically so far as 

 the authors' names were concerned, but not 

 arranged alphabetically so far as the titles of 

 the papers were concerned. The result has 

 been a large and wholly unnecessary expendi- 

 ture of time in looking up some special article 

 or note. For the year 1904, we are glad to 

 see, there is a fairly adequate author and 

 subject index, arranged alphabetically as a 

 whole, although the separate articles under 

 different subject-headings are not in all cases 

 alphabetically arranged. Thus, for example, 

 to take only one case, under ' Observatories ' 

 we find the following: 



At Mount Tsukuba 463 



At Nice 182 



The results of the work done at Tegel. . . 555 



Helwan and Abbassia observatories 374 



New astrophysical and meteorological . . . 130 



New mountain 131 



Mount Weather Meteorological Research 



Observatory 601 



The 1904 index is so great an improvement on 

 the old one that we can not help hoping that 

 the 1905 index will be still better. All those 

 who use the Review will be grateful for the 

 work of Mr. George A. Loveland, who pre- 



