Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-08
SCIENTIFIC METEORoLoGY.
Grumblers Who Expect It to Tell
Them What the Weather is to Be.

From the New York Sun.
The conversation had to do with the Of
fetal weather forecasts and one of those
present. who had been having little to say
remarked:
Gentlemen, you do not seem to under
stand the theory of weather representation
as 1t Is understood by the scientific men
engaged in 1t. To illustrate:
Surgery is the most benefcent of sci
ences. 1t prolongs human life and, what
is more important, It greatly decreases the
sum of human agony. 1t is less experiment.
al than medicine. 1t may fairly be termed
an exact science A surgical operation Is
performed. The operating surgeon is a man
Of great knowledge and skill. The other
surgeons present pronounce the operation
success-even a brilliant success. The
patient succumbs while still under the in
fiuence of the anaesthetic.
Does the incident of the patients death
make the operation any the less a success?
Certainly not The operation was done
swiftly, skillfuly and without the slightest
fault. 1t was successful and the patients
death Is matter entirely apart from the
success of the operation. Professors OF the
science Of meteorology do not admit that IL
is less an exact science than surgery, and
their criterion of success is the same as
that of the surgical professors and practi-
TONERS. The meteorologist has beneath his
eye the Geographic reports of meteorologi-
cal conditions from all points of the COM
pass. His task is to determine what should
be the weather in a given locality at a given
time.
He carefully notes every factor and an
nounces. not his guess. but his definite con-
clusion according to the methods of the SCI
ence of meteorology. 1t is, to take as an
example a recent forecast for the region of
New York city, rain today and warmer, in
creasing southwest to south winds; rain or
snow and colder tomorrow, winds shifting
to southwest by night
THAT forecast was success. The day
was one of the brightest in twelvemonth,
cooler. with a northwesterly gale. On the
following day there was no rain and no
snow, and the wind was not southwest, but
came from the north.
But do these incidental differences be-
tween the weather as predicted and the
weather as it was bear upon the question of
the success of the forecast from a scientific
point of view? Assuredly not
ION the evening when the meteorologists
were making the forecast l have just men
toned / asked bayman what he thought
the weather was going to be.
"'Well,' he said. the wind is not back
Ing up from the east. but is going around
with the sun. / reckon 1t will be fair
weather tomorrow with a good breeze of
a little cooler, with the wind holding off
shore. 1 have engaged to get six barrels of
CLANS and IL the wind doesn't get around
into southwest or south I'll get EN-
He got his CLANS for the wind held off
shore, and there was little sea on.
The trouble, the man concluded, is that
you expect to get something you are not
paying for. You are paying for scientific
meteorology, and you get IL. Do you want
the earth? Do you expect that in addition
to getting your meteorological forecast you
will get valuable information as to what
the weather will be?"