The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1916-07-13
Weather Science

The most imperfect science is meteor
ology. The margin of error in its calcula-
tions is sometimes enormous-sufhcient to
completely reverse prediction.
The weather bureau is useful institu-
ton, based upon an incomplete system of
correlated facts of observation, which are
scientific as far as they go. But there are
elements concerned in the production of
weather about which the methods of mete-
orolgy give no information.
There are birds, insects and four-footed
animals which have an incomparably greater
foreknowledge of weather changes than the
entire scientific corps of the agricultural de-
partment possesses.
When the Projectors of the weather
bureau give warning of an approaching
storm they act on very much the same
principle as that on which railroad time
table is based. A train having been an
nounced by telegraph as started on given
line will arrive in regular succession at
certain points along that line, and station
agent at any given point can. if no acct
dent intervenes, foretell the moment of the
| trains arrival at his station.
Storm centers, or cyclones, moving
across the country are in some ways COM
parable to trains following a time schedule.
But unfortunately they do not run on rails,
hox dr;xo, hx,o h 10
they are subject to interruptions and OBJ
stacles of many kinds, and instead of al
WAYS keeping the track and following the
course they frequently wander vaguely
about or take an unexpected turn or else
fade away like exhausted whirls in water.
In fact, the weather bureau Projectors
are in the same quandary in which train
dispatchers would find themselves if rail
road tracks were shifting lines, continually
drifting this way and that, getting crossed
and entangled or sinking into suddenly
formed quagmires and thus disappearing
for good.
Meteorology as science of weather pre-
diction fails just because it possesses too
few facts. With the aid of the telegraph
the weather bureau can, if lucky, follow the
trail of storm center across the United
States, but it cannot tell just how new
storm is born nor Just when or where it
will begin its course.
The one only great fact on which it bases
its whole system of prediction is the gen.
eral tendency of cyclonic disturbance in
this country to travel eastward with a
northerly trend, while storms originating
around the gul of Mexico and the Carib-
can sea usually come up the coast.
But the official weather prognosticators
are as much in the dark as the ordinary
citizen concerning what is going to happen
in the atmosphere next week, and they
really know nothing about any storm until
after it has begun its career, and then all
that they know is the course that 1t will
take-in case it doesn't happen to change
its mind.
A slight variation in the intensity, or
quality, of the radiation received from the
sun might account for sudden changes or
abnormal weather, and recent investiga-
tons show that such variations occur, but
what is needed is more accurate knowledge
about them and their effect. Heat and
light are only two of an infinite number of
forms of vibration sent to US from the sun.
Every body knows that when the weather
records show that two days are precisely
alike in temperature, in humidity, etc,
human nerves prove that they are vastly
unlike in some unnamed popularity which
affects the springs OF life.
The spider busily and confidently spin
ming her webs in preparation for spell of
fine weather which some unerring mechan-
ism of foreknowledge within her enables
her to detect is surer guide than baro-
meter. She responds to vibrations as yet
only guessed at by science, and so perhaps
do the supersensitive nerves of many hu-
man creature. Garrett P. Serviss in New
York Journal.