Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1880-12-28
Tuesday Morning. Dec. IS. 1880.
WEATHER PREDICTIONS.

WEATHER PREDICTIONS.
Vennor, the Canadian weather prophet, has
secret system by which he endeavors to
tell weeks and even months in advance what
the weather viii be. He has made few
brilliant successes, perhaps as many in the
course of year as good almanac scores,
and he has made good many failures. His
successes however, have made a deeper and
more general impression than his failures,
and his prophecies have come to be looked
for with much interest and many people
place much confidence in them.
In the absence of knowledge of his sys-
tenn, of course it cannot be told how scientif-
cally he works or how. far mere guess work
enters into his predictions. The value of his
plan can only be judged by its results. The
Weather bureau at Washington has kept
track of his representations, and it is found
that quarter of them are verified if they
are intended for the st: Lawrence valley, and
not ten per cent. if they are meant for other
localities. Furthermore, the officers of the
Signal Service, who have made meteorolog-
ical phenomena study for years. are satis-
fed that no man in the world has devised a
plan that will foreteH special storms on GER
tain days. or which will offer genuine pre-
diction for long periods in advance. Says
Professor Cleveland Able of the Signal Ser
vice: fWe are sometimes asked to give the
weather several days in advance, in the case
of festival occasions. Under favorable con-
ditions- We can do this, with a very good
chance of successful prediction. For in
stance: The chances are that the last few
days of August will be clear, because the rec
ords show that this is the case five times to
one. This, of course, relates to a particular
locality, and cannot be made to cover the
whole country. I suppose all Mr.. Vennor's
predictions are made by these methods. He
believes earnestly that there must be periods
and empirical laws in the weather, which will
be of use in foretelling it. He is an earnest
student of meteorology and his predictions
represent the best that can be done with his
system. IF we should attempt to describe
the periodical laws of the weather relating to
the locality of Washington by study of the
past records, however, we should never be
able to predict for the future any better than
Mr.. Vennor is doing in Canada; that is, the
verifcations would be about 25 per cent
The weather predictions of the New York
Herald have also been watched by the Wealth
er bureau, and it is found that there is not
more than seventeen per cent. of real verif-
cations. There is about twenty-five per cent.
of cases that might be considered doubtful,
making little over forty per cent. of pre-
dictions which come near the truth. An in
vestigation was also made by the director of
the London meteorological Office, and he ar
rived at the same conclusion.
Whether the time will ever arrive when the
state of the weather can be predicted for
long time beforehand with much more GER
tainty than it now is by almanac makers and
other guessers is doubtful. And we frankly
declare our belief that so long as New Eng
land weather has to be considered it will be
impossible to make any calculations that will
hold