The daily Alaska citizen., 1919-09-16
SUMMERS TELLS
 OF WORK WHICH
 BUREAU PLANS

The department of agriculture. thru | l. weather bureau. is trying to cor
 ryrr the erroneous impression pre- ! .uIug rhguout a large part of tho
 .nlt.d States regarding weather con
 Nitton+ in Alaska finder the direction 1 uC Melvin F Summers. m.t.osoIogD~t .n charge of the Alaska section, eli matologicm data a gathered from the stations tmuouc the trrritor. aa
 uhlei n monthly and yearly IT, ports and distributed thr1out tnr States for the enlightenment of those Outsiders who believe the sun never hines in Alaska
 Ir Summers. Mao ha naa ,hm2 of the work in the North during the .a., .n.,., sra,-. !. uoH in %,uana on
 ls annual tour of tn, territory .alab fishing new and roopening old ta ions and looking after the work e,u- eraIIy He reached N"umm on 0u. steamer Alaska. and win rrOup to the coast by way of FoIlbuun. and r.. Richardson trail.
 in d conversation with IopO sentative of The News Ia- oycuH. at the Southern HoleL Nr Smmrr spoke very highly of th" manun. m which r4e stations of the bloau thru out the territory are condD,t"a. A..
 macy and regularity in making ob .ur,auon. are of tle highest mpo.l ancc to the bureau he .a>s. and the
 rm,s thus far hay. been very satl- factory, particularly SO in view of 'N" fact that much of the work IS Nouu tary.
 The bureau now has about >o co. operative and special observers thu out the territory, who supply the bureau reports for the compilation of dmatoIogicaI data For tho mrpoa" of weather forcastinG. two report daily are required of eleven stations. at widely separated points. These re. ports are flashed To Juneau and to ..a..dn2ton D. C., at > a. m. mod D III. Juneau time and from them ... v,mncr rouuuon of Jh, uel day are determined.
 'o.r.aSting Nas moi huge sue .e.s last winter, Nr Summers admits but he hopes to b. able To improve the service greatly during the com ing winter, as a result of having established new stations sos ring " .unlricnt area to insure fairly accu at, calculations. SUu better results Nua}d be insured by the establish ment of a station in Siberia, because of the air movement from lthc wet to the east, but that, Mr. Summers says. is out of the question at present The stations making these special reports. which are available al q number of points in the States along the route tunrn by the messages forwarded to Waahineton twice daily, include Sit ka. Eagle. Tanana Nome Nooryih, Akiak. Atka. butch Iarbor, Kodiak, St Paul. Valdez. and Juneau The stations at Nooryik, in the Kobuh country. and Atka. in tthr AI"utian islands, were established this sum mor
 The forrcasting service will begin ou October l5, but it will not include aal} reports as was tn" case last winter. The intention of the bureau, NJ. Summers say, ia to supply In tcrior Alaska with advance intorma- uon only when marked weather changes indicated Variations of a few Gcg' will not be taken into ac count
 %mcr coming to the Interior Mir. summers has arranged for the re upuning of stations at Ruby, Circle and Hot Springs, and for the estab nsnment of new station at Iignite. Arrangements also have been made for keeping a record of weather con ditjons in the kantshna country.
 Taking baromehic readings for the purpose of determining accurately tine altitude of Panama, which the records now shows, has an altitudeOf 500 feet also has occupied the time of Mr. Summers since his arrival here The bureau. he says, was unwilling to ac- cept the registered altitude of the army town when it was known posi- lively that Nenana, which is several hundred miles up stream, has an alu- tudc of only 352 The bureau esti- mate of the Panama altitude is ap- proXimately 200 feet. The readings were taken at Nenana, Panama and several other station simultaneously,