New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1876-09-27
SIGNAL SERVICE REPORTS.


ply its readers with daily local weather re-
port, ii follows that the Government predic-
tions on the general subject are closely
scrutinized. They well repay study. In
respect to great disturbances of the atmos-
phere they are singularly accurate, both as to
facts and predictions. Such errors as occur
perhaps errors Is too strong q word-are
chiefly IN matters Of minor importance or OF
local detail. We have been especially inn
pressed with this fact after q careful exam
nation of the Signal Service reports relating
to the storm that swept over this city Sun
day before last. Telcgraphic dispatches gave
its track in the West Indies ut an early date
in It's career. It's influence was noted in the
Government reports as can area of low barom-
"etcr' off the coast Of Florida several hours
before it struck our shores. It's progress and
probable path afterward were announced sue
cessiyely and accurately. Tho frequency with
which the Signal Service reports have mapped
out and predicted the path of storms in adj
vance has halituated the public TO expect
such success. But the fact is worthy of spe-
cial notice in the case of that cyclone, because
il took a very unusual course. We need not
here 20 into particulars about what is now
Office had followed mere traditions as to the
customary course of such storms It's predic-
tons respecting that particular cyclone would
have been all wrong On the contrary they
were all right. The result shows that the
Government weather predictions can be relied
upon, not only when things take their usual
course, but when the circumstances are extra
ordinary.
The accuracy of our Government predictions
of weather will not suffer by contrast with
what is done abroad. In the address of DR..
Thomas Andrews delivered recently before the
British Association for the Advancement OF
Science (of which he is President for IS76-7,
he says of the years work of the MeteOrologi-
cal Office in London "Few storms occurred
" for which no warnings had been given, but
unfortunately these were some of the heaviest
gales of the period" No such criticism can
apply to our Signal Service work; in fact its
mistakes have been of the other kind, giving
warnings where none were needed and it is
every way. preferable to err thus on the safe
side. At the same meeting Sir William ThOmp-
son compimented our Government weather
predictions in no measured terms, and fully
recognized the accuracy and value of the per-
Torrance.
But while the Signal Service is fairly earn
ing compliments Mt home and abroad, it is I'M
questionably hampered by the false economy
which was imposed by the House of Repre-
sentatiyes in cutting down the needed appro-
priations. This injury cannot be readily esti-
mated. A reduction of the number of OBJ
servers must make the data for predictions in
sufficient but this may be partly covered up
by skillfully interpreting the observations that
remain. There ia, however, another direction
in which the deficiency cannot be made up.
MeteorOlogy has made great advances in re-
cent years, but the true theory of the at
mosphere is rs yet only partially ascertained.
The why as well as the how must be known
before the predictions of the weather can be
accounted anything more than probabilities"
TO this research wider range of observation
and greater detail than the Signal Office can
now afford are absolutely requisite. The
present retrerchment is n step in the wrong
direction. It pCstpones the day when the
Government predictions can be certainly relied
on when they shall be founded on a science
as exact as that which predicts the eclipses of
the sun or the transit of planet.