The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-12-30
VALUE OF THE

The annual sst of efot rs |. Moore Chief sf sas tatcs \ Weather Burr te, tis tr year gives very i tet.iIk H7cr Jon as to the important ssN fich he is the head. In addit., the ad- ministrative report. it shows the val uable work the bureau is prosecuting in physical research, with the direct view towards improving weather fore casting. some of the problems that aref being solved. and the fact that the attention of the scientists of the ! world is directed to our weather ser I-vice, which is acknowledged to be the 4 | most complete in existence.
 |. The report shows that the weather forecasts are distributed daily by tel
 ephone. telegraph. or mail. to over two million addresses. Also that shs river and flood forecasts and. warnings which are of almost incalcuIable value
 to the different interests of the coun-
 try. have a very wide distribution.
 The bureau is gradually erecting its own ofnce buildings at many of it's
 stations. Alabama has two of these buildings, one at Anniston and another at Birmingham. These buildings are especially adapted to the work of the bureau, and it is hoped that. eventual | ly, the bureau will have it's own office buildings in all of the more important -cities where it has stations. So far, the new buildings are only located in cities where the bureau has been pay ing large sums for office rentals.
 Probably the most interesting re- search work the Bureau is now con- ducting is the upper air observations. which are being taken regularly above Mount Weather. Va. at which point the bureau has a we'll equipped physi- cal reserach laboratory that Is already attracting the, attention of the scien- tific world.
 It is expected that these upper air observations will eventually afford data that will materially tend towards i'm" proving, the. accuracy of weather fore' casts at tHessartA levaa. assiss shown by the following extracts from the re- port: Heretofore, as is we'll known. fore casts of the weather have been en- tireiy based on the horizontal gradients of pressure and temperature as iheas ured at the surface of the the earn: far syan Yae one station Is considered of such im- portance that the first two charts or this nature. namely; those anq tor have sve been published. They so graphi.. calIy tell the story of the rise ana fall of thermaI levels within thelr nrefend their significanee. It is ap- parent that when a comparatively deep I stratum of abnormaily warm or apnor- region. reg the action of moving cyclone or apticXclQne on. the weather experi- enced at the bottom of the atmosphere Will be materialiy different different rom rom taas tSe upper air at normal temperature. It is also to be noted that where re- yersal of the temPsrature gfadieass faeaenss Would in0wn' be made than if the tenn perature uniformly and gradually shaded away from the surface upward. thea viewpoint of the forecaster, are not yet fully comprehended. but cer- tainly they present fund Of informa- tion that will be studied with profit | by those whose duty 1t is to add to our | limited knowledge of the Sseience that | is back of the art of weather fore casting. One method of utilizing the | upper air observations made at Mount | Weather is illustrated by quoting from | the general forecast issued at Wash ington at p. m., on October 5, as follows:
 "The kite flights at Mount Weather, Va, conducted by the Weather Bureau during the last few days, have shown lent circulation of winter The tenn perature this afternoon, about one mile in the free air above the station was strong west wind. On October an altitude of slightly over 23,000 feet was reached, at which point tenn Of war ye aegfsss
 Still later, the general forecast is- sued at Washington, at p. m., on October P, contained the following ref erence to observations received from Mount Weather:
 "The temperature conditions today in the free air above the Weather Bureau Observatory at Mount Weath- CT, Va, were rather unusual, namely, no diminution of temperature up to one mile above the st Sion, and only eighteen degrees lower on reaching a height of nearly two miles above the mountain. The air at the highest point reached had about the same rempera- luIe dS was IoCOIdcu at dh OquNl vation during the past summer, thus indicating, for the present at least. high degree of heat in the upper re- gions of the atmosphere"
 "In view of the success attained in getting flights to considerable eleva- .tions on practically every day, it is confidentially expected that with still further improvement in apparatus, r it will be possible to study the march of temperature through the various seasons of the year at attitudes here tofore inaccessible, as it is probable that eventually heights of five to six miles will be frequently attained in the making of these observations. It forecaster to trace the sequence that certainly exist between the tempera ture changes at these high levels and those that occur at the surface: es- pecially must we determine that alti- tudes at which both diurnal and an- nual variations of temperature cease, and whether or not, in regions beyond these two variable strata, there is constant condition, or whether there are variations in the conditions that control the absorption of heat by the upper air, and the relation of these various phenomena to our weather.
 A study of the upper air observa- tions at Mount Weather for year or is advisable to make kite ascensions at Pikes Peak, Mount Washington, or other elevated places,
 Meteorographs and other necessary apparatus are now being made with a view, of exploring the various quad rants of typical storms in the western region. It Is proposed to liberate,