The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-11-30
FOOLISH, He SAYS.
s. ID. Flora, of Local Bureau,
Discusses FOrecasters.
Long Range Guessers Compared
to Rainmakers.
THE SOCALLED CYCLES
Explains Why Weather Isn't
Controlled That Way.
Planets and Moon Do Not Al
feet Conditions ON Earth.
THE SOCALLED CYCLES

T6du, III q statement lOOdS. VI
late there have been a number of al
legged weather dopesters at work and
the weather men everywhere are try
ing to show the impossibility, from
their standpoint of correct work on
part of hit or miss forecasters. In
cluded in the statement is the hint
that some of these days it may be
possible to make forecasts farther
ahead than is now attempted but it
is declared that if this time ever
comes the forecasts will be made as
result of an immense amount of re-
search and not an accidental d1scoV-
cry or because the weather is found
to run in cycles
These advertisements of so called
long range weather forecasters which
occasionally appear in local and 9th
palmy days of the fake rainmakers
who f1ourished 16 years ago. In those
days many newspapers made regu-
lar feature of the representations OF
some otherwise unknown celebrity
who could pry open the future and
tell what was going to occur the
Fourth of July as easily as gypsy
fortune teller could take pack of
greasy cards and tell us the color OF
the eyes of our better halves to be.
But those who are vitality interest
ed in the weather of the future soon
found that general storm period
somewhere in North America) on
the 22nd, 23rd or oath of the month
did not help much when it came to
what the weather would really be at
a given point on a given day. Deal
ing in glittering generalities the long
range weather man could. if he kept
his snow storms out of July and the
hot periods away from the Christmas
holidays and mixed in the usual num-
Der of storm periods, get away with
HE ncfi shoot
ing into a bunch of blackbirdS with
a shotgun. You will hit some.
Long Range Forecasters.
"a really close comparison OF these
long range predictions with the
weather that actually occurred has
always impressed me with the idea
that any bright farmer boy that has
had his toes frostbitten by late May
frosts or had to stay at home from
the Fourth of July picnic on account
of rain, could have sat down and
made better almanac himself, said
Mr. Flora.
''What basis do these long range
use? We are frequently
asked that question by visitors to the
weather bureau offices.
Some depend on the position of
the planets and moon. That's always
good ground to build on fer the
planets and moon are always seen
there on schedule time except when
some unusually fervid professor
Greats a planet out of his imagination
tually done.
s'The only trouble is that the
weather doesn't connect with the con-
functions and oppositions of any of
the heavenly bodies and, without
single exception, scientific men are so
skeptical they can't see any reason
why it Should do so.
1--WE have perfected thermometers
so delicate they will measure hun
dred thousandth of a degree and we
ceived from these heavenly bodies is
concerned that of the moon is about a
thousandth that received
from the sun and that from the
brightest star may be compared to
the heat a person would get from a
small bottle of boiling water 200 feet
distant. We have perfected baro-
meters till we can measure the pres
sure of the air to the thousandth part
of an inch and we find the moon in
affect the pressure of the air more
than four thousandths of ar inch
barometric pressure and the influence
of the largest planet is inappreciable-
How could these create storms,
drouehts and other cataclysms that
are frequently predicted so far ahead
There are institutions in many parts
of the world where are instruments that
register the smallest variations in the
magnetism of the earth, and seismo-
graphs that record the tremors of the
earths crust. but none of the men that
rave studied these have connected them
with the movements of the moon or
stars.
About the latest (and earliestl thing
in this So-calied long range forecaSting
has been to discover that the weather
tends TO repeat itself in cycles
What Adam Found.
adam discovered this the second day
he was IN Eden and the second year he
titled the soil he had doubtless noticed
that the weather varied according to
the seasons of the year, but no man
has yet found any cycle that would
really justify MIN in making a definite
forecast of the particular weather that
will prevail at any given period year
or even season ahead, or even to state
whether one season will be colder or
warmer or wetter or drier than usually
occurs.
1T would seem at first that there
would naturally be a definite period in
which wet or dry years or cold or
warm winters would succeed each 9TH
er, but we have precipitation records i'll
Kansas that were begun in 1896 and
temperature records a half a century
old and, in the eastern states, they
have records that were begun a hun
dred years ago, yet the closest study
Of them has failed to reveal any evil
dence of any we'll defined cycle After
an enormous amount of work in COM
piling weather records from all parts
of the world some of our most eminent
meteo biologists have discovered what
seems to be small variation of the
W Gather i'll cycles of eleven years cor
responding With the periods of sun
spots, but this variation is so exceed
ingly small that we could not detect it
were it not for the painstaking obser-
vations that have been compiled, and
even then the evidence OF it is so poor
~ defined many of the greatest scien-
fists are inclined to pay no attention
to it at all.
Certainly it would have to be
credulous person that could believe that
any person with no other qualifications
Ian being the son of a prophet or
close weather observer could find any
cYcle from a few short weather rec