The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-11
Mr.. Harmon Is Getting After
the Storm Secrets of the
Pacific.
A METEOROLOGICAL ADVANCE
Observations From the Ocean, Asia
and Alaska That May Reveal
the Unknown.

and Alaska, with the approval of Wash
ington authority.
This will be an important step in the
progress of the study of Pacific meteor
ology, and the whole Pacific region pre-
sents as inviting and as little worked
field to the meteorologist as it does to
students of most other natural sciences.
Pacific Coast weather is principally made,
except for the mixing, in big laboratories
thousands of miles out in the deep, and so
little is known yet about the exact pro-
cesses and sources of materials that as far
as a forecaster's business is concerned it
might as well be made by Neptune in mys-
terious ocean caves.
What Mr.. Harmon proposes to do now
is to get lot of voluntary observers at
work in Alaska and along the Aleutian
Islands, get for his own use meteorological
reports from Japan and other Western Pa
cific countries which are now sent to
Washington for burial, and to get from the
photographic stations here and at Port
land and Port Townsend the daily reports
of weather at sea, which that service is
getting coast and deep-water captains to
send in in steadily increasing numbers.
These sources will supply great deal of
valuable material, and with it and with
future progress in observation more will
be known about Pacific storms, and on
this coast observers will be able to predict
them with much greater certainty.
Mr.. Harmon has just received word
that lot of simple observers instruments
which he asked for are en- route from
Washington, and now he Will proceed to
get some people up north 10 agree to use
them and send their records here as often
as chance allows. An observer is wanted
at Unalaska and another on Attu or some
other Aleutian island several hundred
miles west where there is white settle
! ment. He hopes to get somebody at Fort
Selkirk, on the Yukon, in the Northwest
Territory, to do as much for science, and
reports are wanted from the mouth OF the
Porcupine and some other places. The
weather service has many voluntary OBJ
servers all over the United States, includ-
ing California, and, while the reports vary
with the devotion, sticktoitiveness and
digestion of the observers, majority are
found quite regular reliable and valuable.
The official Japanese published reports
will hereafter stop here and be forwarded
to Washington, as will those from the
Philippine Islands among others. The
monthly Hawaiian reports are received
here now, and the one for April, by the
mountain within one period of twenty-four
hours.
The daily observations of mariners all
over the ocean will be of first Importance.
Mr.. Harmon requested that these re-
ports be secured from the photographic
service for the weather service here, and
it will probably be done as there is moth
ing very bad about it, but it will take the
slow turning of lot of ponderous Wash
ington machinery before Mr.. Harmon,
up in the Mills building, can get at the
weather reports of Lieutenant Fechteler
down in the Merchants Exchange.
There are 5000 voluntary weather-ob-
servers on the Atlantic Ocean, the meteor
ology of which is we'll understood, and the
monthly pilot charts of which are COM
plete and of great value. A few Pacific
captains have sent observation to the hy-
geographic office here for years, but the
data compiled remains very meager. a
year or more ago special efforts to increase
these reports were made, and now repre-
sentative of the photographic. office sees
the captain of every outgoing vessel,
nearly all of whom accept little books
of blank daily weather reports and promise
to send them in. About one In five does
so. From twelve to fifteen a week are re-
ceived, some being turned in by returning
captains and some coming from ports all
over the world. Coasting masters, to whom
the work is of the greatest value, do not as
a rule appreciate it and can be got to do
but little. From the compiled data as it
has accumulated the photographic service
has been for year issuing monthly pilot
chart of the Pacific Ocean, showing among
many other things the normal weather
conditions at points five degrees apart, but
it will be years before they can be as in
diligently compiled as the Atlantic charts.
None of all this new information which
bo f,1t 4,ar
office here can of course be used in making
daily forecasts. As fast as it comes in,
some of it year late, it will be registered
in tables and on charts, and Will enable a
meteorologist to study out how Pacific
weather works. For instance, reports of
storm en- route here across the ocean may
come stringing in for months from land
and sea, and finally the storm may be
studied year later as one on land is
studied the same day with the aid of tele
graphic reports.
If meteorological is now asked anything
about Pacific storms, the chances are he
will say, Il don't know" All our storms
come from the west, but with Pacific
winds Jobs old taunt holds good, for no
one can tell whence it comes"
1t is not known where the highs and
flows" that float in in constant succession
come from. 1t is not known how or why
they start. But two storms-which were
Chinese typhoons over there-have ever
been tracked across the ocean, and there is
no great confidence about those. Prob
ably the typhoons of the China Sea, the
warm Japanese current, the cold Arctic
current coming down through Boring
Straits and resulting changes in tempera-
ture and density of the air out over the
broad ocean, are among the things that
govern Pacific Coast weather, but that is
only guess.
When O. IN strikes the Pacific Coast,
nearly alN between California and
Upper Brit,- Columbia, that is the first
heard OF it, and iorecaster has often to use
its edge to prophesy with. He can't see
all around and through it as weather OBJ
servers can storms in the East. If he
knew more about Pacific storms in
scientific way he would often be able to
judge what was going on at sea and what
was going to happen, and SO predict with
greater accuracy what the next twenty
four hours would bring, not only on land
but on the path of coasting vessels.
The extension of systematic weather OBJ
servations into the whole region of the
North Pacific Ocean will thus be of import
ance, practically as well as scientifically.
Besides, the great problem of why, how
and where our storms start, there are many
particular ones waiting to be answered be-
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