WEATHER IN THE PACIFIC

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22271, 9 December 1937, Page 16

WEATHER IN THE PACIFIC

REPORTING SERVICE FOR AVIATION IMMEDIATE EXPANSION PROPOSED (TRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) WELLINGTON. December 8. The immediate expansion of meteorological services for the assistance of aviation in the south-west Pacific by (he establishment of additional reporting stations and the receipt of more frequent and specialised reports from the stations, aircraft, and shipping observers and progressively more effective correlation of the meteorological services of the whole of the Pacific are proposed in resolutions and recommendations adopted at the SouthWest Pacific Regional Meteorological Conference, which sat at Wellington last week. There is full confidence that the present serious handicaps to meteorological work in this region will be

largely removed and the services of several countries made effective as regards overseas aviation, and also much more complete, as regards general forecasts within the areas of the contributing countries and for the particular national services for internal air lines, shipping, and farming. A basic resolution laid down the principle that meteorological services for trans-oceanic aviation cannot be undertaken without adequate facilities for radio communication, that the commercial cable services cannot meet

Ihe requirements of such services, and i that provision must be made for point ' to point communication between terminals. The proposals are for the arrangement of broadcasts of the more detailed station reports in specified order and that five issues of national or continental type - shall -be- made at fixed hours dailv from the Dutch East Indies. Australia. New Zealand, Fiji, and Samoa, and that, further, one international collective issue shall be made at fixed hours as from the south-west Pacific region as a whole, preferably from a station in Australia. If the proposal of the conference car. be put into effect the area surveyed will cover a great part of the southern hemisphere, and link up with the , northern hemisphere services, makingpossible a correlated study of weather data from above and below the equator. Suggestions are advanced for the receipt of reports from additional points with emphasis on the Kermadecs. Ships’ reports are also empha--sised. .