The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1888-11-03
THE SIGNAL SERVICE.
How Uncle Sans Meteorological Tipst ers
Perform Their Work.


How Uncle Sans Meteorological Tipsters
Perform Their Work.
In nearly every city of prominence
from Maine to California is stationed a
man whose sole business is to keep an
eye on the weather. The Government
pays him, feeds him, gives him the
necessary instruments for observation,
and calls him soldier. But the pub
lie, for whose benefit all this is done,
usually berates him and vows he bears
more resemblance to the long-eared
animal that hauls the army baggage.
For many years the Signal Service has
been obliged to bear the sings and
arrows of an outraged public, without
other retaliation than that of OCCASION
ally pouring down water upon the
heads of its alleged traducers, showing
them up. roasting, freezing or blowing
them into subsection.
There are nearly $50 Signal Service
stations in the United States, employ
ing at present about 450 men. They
are graded in rank from privates to
lieutenants, with General A. w. Greedy
as chief of the department.
The weather prediction, which is
the most important part of a newspa-
per to many people, and it is at least
interesting to everybody, is peculiar
production, and at present is the work
of one single individual, who is-con--
sidered the greatest Scientific Weather
prophet of the age. This is Lieutenant
Dunwoody, and he lives at Washing
ton, where he visits the Headquarters
of the Signal Service daily to predict
| the weather for the whole country. The
Lieutenant, instead of gazing at the
sky with a big telescope, as many peo-
! pie imagine, simply sits at large ta-
! BILE, on which are scattered a number
of maps bearing Geographic markings
of storms, storm centers, high and low
barometers and the general state of the
weather in every section of the coun-
try. From these data alone he is able
to fOretell approximately which way
storm will move and what time it
will reach a certain spot. The Lieu
tenant has been in the Signal Service
for sixteen years. There are two other
Lieutenants, also stationed at Washing
ton, whose predictions are occasionally
seen. One of them. Lieutenant Craig,
is the acting chief signal officer in Gem
eral Greedy absence.
At eight o'clock every morning,
Washington time, the weather observer
at each station throughout the United
States takes his observation, which he
at once telegraphs to Washington.
From this observation is made the pre-
dictiOn which the afternoon papers
publish. At eight o'clock in the even
ing second observation is made,
which results in a prediction that is
published in the morning papers.
The cost of fitting out signal serv-
ice station is about $4,000. The yearly
allowance for the incidental expenses
is $500, and big stations, despite the
fact that they have no rent to pay,
have hard time to make both ends
meet when January l arrives. -.--
A few of the Signal Service s maxims
regarding the weather are: "a low
barometer signifies a storm center;"
"winds blow into storm center;"
''storms move spirally;" 1.-The velocity
of the wind does not indicate the We
locity at which storm is moving in
any direction;" ga storm may move in
circle and create cyclone by the air
thrown off from it's center"
Tho ,,roJ QUO l,o.
ometer, thermometers and anemome-
tiers. There are many other devices
for calculating the winds velocity, the
atmospheric moisture and temperature,
but the principle of foretelling weather
brains, and each helps the other out or
into a hole.-St. Louis Post Dispatch.