NITED^STATES 

 'D'fPARTri.ENT 

 OF AGRICULTURE 



IKI^ftMATToN 



CHATS WITH THE WEATHE?. lUl^ 



D. S. T)fp*nn3»«Bt •! A 



Friday, May l6, 1930. 



ANITOIN CEMENT; This is our day for a chat with the weather man. Old Oh. Server 

 is here to tell us what he has picked up from the scientists of the U. S. Weather 



Bureau. Tell us about it, Mr. OB. Server. We always have weather. Good or 



had, we have it morning, noon, and night. We have it froni dark to dawn and from 

 sunup to sunset - 



****** 



Speaking of sunsets, did you see that wonder the other day"? It was 

 glorious.'* As the colors faded out in the sky, I thought of the words of the 

 poet: 



"What magic shall solve us the secret 

 Of heauty that's horn for an hour?" 



But that was nothing to some of those sunsets we had in 1912. Mayhe 

 you remember them, too. The sunset colors were extra brilliant theh. The 

 usual faint second glow came back bright. It seemed as if some giant master 

 artist had -painted the western sky in a flaming burst of wild genius. 



And from what Dr. Herbert H. Kimball, tlie sunlight expert of the U. S, 

 Weather Bureau, tells me, that isn't so far frorr. the truth. A giant did help 

 paint those pictures. Those extra bright sunsets all over the world at that 

 time were caused by smoke and ashes tlirown into the u-:Dper air by the Katmai 

 volcano in Alaska, in its gigantic explosion that year. 



Baok in Au^st 1S83 there was a still more violent volcanic explosion of 

 the famous Krakatoa i.: the East Indies. The ashes from that big blow-up spread 

 around the world and hung in the upper air for more than two years, causing 

 remarkable red sunsets during 'S3i 'S^, and 'g5« When Mt. Pelee in the West 

 Indies erupted in 1902 people in distant parts of the world were again treated 

 to a series of more striking sunsets. In fact, such things seem to happen 

 about once every ten years. It has been eighteen years now since the sunsets 

 of 1912. Dr. Kimball says that this is the longest clear spell we've had since 

 we begsm to record intensity of the visible and invisible rays we get frcm the 

 sun. 



You see those tremendous volcanic explosions do more than merely tinge 

 our sunsets with extra beauty. Records of the measurements made in this coun- 

 try, and in England, France, Russia, Switzerland, Poland, India, and other 

 parts of the world, show that followin^, the big volcanic eruptions of Krakstoa, 

 Pelee, and Katrnai, there was a big drop in the amount of total radiation we 

 got fror;. the sun. The amount of li^ht, heat, and health-giving rays was cut 

 down by the practically invisible screen of volcanic ashes hanging in the upper 

 air. Dr. Kimball, who worked out the figures which showed this remarkable 

 shutting down of our suji- supplies, says that the average person hardly noticed 



