Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1909-03-13
WHY THE WEATHER
WOULDN'T BE GOOD
Chief of Weather Bureau Explains
Officially Why 1t "Snew and
blew" Inauguration Day.

Observer j. NJ. Sherier of the local
weather station today handed out the
following official explanation of the
famous slip of the chief of the weather
bureau March 3, when he promised
President Taft fair weather for his
Inauguration:
1T is not usual to answer criticisms
of the forecasts of the weather bureau,
but the hundreds of press clippings
that have been received since March
containing adverse criticisms of the
bureau seem to call for this state
ment from me.
Forecasts of the weather bureau
are before the public every day, in the
year. In the past about one predc-
tion out of each 10 failed to be veri-
fed, and it may be expected that the
same ratio of failures will be main
tanned until meteorology can be made,
what it is not now, an exact science
In the case of--~the storm that
visited Washington on the 4th of
March last, the fact is that the dis
turbance began here on the morning
of the 3rd, and was accurately fore.
cast the day before The bureau an,
ticipated that the storm center would
PASS over the middle Atlantic states
during the night of the 3rd, and that
northwest winds and falling temper
ature would leave clear day for the
! 4th. The center past precisely IS
forecast, the wind shifted and the TEN
perature FELL but instead of The
northwest wind clearing the sky as il
does in nearly all cases, precipitation
in the form of snow occurred and con
tinued for II hours after the storm
center has passed eastward. No fore
caster could forsee this. Were we q
forecast fail of snow following the
passage of storm centers that NOV,
from the northwest. we would hav,
hundreds of failures charged agains
us, instead of an occasional one, TO
1t is rare that snow falls in the mid
die Atlantic states except with the ap
lproach of storm from the southwest
which causes northeast winds, and i
is extremely rare that any storm 4
this region that begins with rain end
with snow of any considerable amount
On the contrary. many storms that be
gin as snow end as rain.
!: "The forecast in question was mad
by one of the most experienced fore
casters ofithe bureau and was concur
red in by all of the forecasters VIII
were converSant with the conditions
and the same forecast would be mad
today if similar conditions existed.
'The forecasters of the Unite
States weather bureau are the equals
If not the superiors. of any others ):
, the world, and their predictions =
. frost, cold waves, floods and marin
, storms, although subject to error i
, the proportion of about one to 10, ar
of such value to the industries of tn
, lnation that if one of the newspaper
Z that now so freely criticise becaus
, two unverified forecasts for the Di:
trist of Columbia have fallen on il
u auguration day were to omit from it
, ipages the daily predictions of tn
weather its readers would compel
to restore them, and if the depar
ment of congress were to close a st;
: tion of the bureau in any part of tn
I United States the property interest
J, would demand it's restoration. Thi
7, would not be the case il the hysteric;
q abuse that is now being INDUCED
Twas justified.
''WILLLIS L. MOORE,
al "Chief q. s. Weather Bureau