4 
period (from October to March) the winds are Northeasterly and 
during the "summer" period (from April to September) the winds 
tend to be more Southeasterly. While the Northeasterly winds 
have been credited with the wet season on Howland (Brooks,1926) 
C tliG. 
f£EISij later data indicates that the rains are more likely to 
be caused by the occurance of Westerly and Northwesterly winds. 
The confusion here could have resulted from the fact that the 
O 
infrequent Westerlies do eoem- fee occur fmtrtdie most paw.4 - w.trh e 
f W c -*» j\n ¥+r *t 
winter o^-t-o r th ee - s-feeg -ly--season., f ds?*Jn all.Irecso-^ded instances 
of shipwrecks on Howland SgSU3£Bfl tqhfegk ' were caused by weather, 
squalls with westerly or Northwesterly winds were cited. And it 
would seem from this data that Westerlies are most likely to 
occur during the winter months since 7 of the 9 shipwrecks occured 
during that period. Shipwrecks caused by westerlies on nearby 
Baker Island also occured mainly during the winter. 
Troof in the opposite direction for Howland's rainfall result¬ 
ing from Westerlies is furnished by the low precipitation years 
1910, 1916, and 1917. During those years no disturbances of the 
trades by Westerlies were recorded. (Knoch,1927) 
Unfortunately only few, scattered remarks other than ship¬ 
wreck information can be found in the literature that point to 
these abnormal wind directions and thus no regular pattern is 
known for sure. In view of Mil the apparent great rarity of their 
occurance it was a fortunate thing that at least one meterologically 
interested observer has witnessed them over a period of many years. 
Mooch states that a man who had lived for thirty years on the guano 
