WEATHER SCIENCE.

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 47, 24 February 1934, Page 19

WEATHER SCIENCE.

BOOK FOR THE LAYMAN

In "Th© Drama of the Weather" Six Napier Shaw takes stock of the position attained by the science of meteorology, and he does it in-a manner which is as stimulating as it is original. "The Drama*of Weather" follows close on the heels of the great four-volume "Manual of Meteorology," to which Sir Napier's time and energies have been largely devoted since his retirement from the directorship of the British Meteorological Office. Much; of tho "Manual" is stiff reading for the laity, and the same adjective may be applied to its price; so, with the object of making his -knowledge and experience more widely available, the^ author has assembled, and condensed in the smaller work under review such portions of his magnum opus as may be readily understood, of the people. After adding thereto a good • deal of fresh material he has' cast the whole into the form which struck him as being likely to have ■ the most extensive appeal.

We gather from the preface, and from a prologue illustrated by a wonderful j array of cloud photographs, that the notion of giving his story its histrionic setting was suggested to Sir Napier partly by his feeling that the weather may ,be regarded as the work of a skilled dramatic artist, and partly by the moving pageantry of the sky as seen on the miniature stage of his study, window. Starting.with him there we are led, in the course of some 260 pages, from a consideration of meteorology in its historical aspect along a picturesque route which runs, now high now low, sometimes- behind the scenes, sometimes in front of them, to the rise of the curtain on the play itself, represented by that never-ending trilogy of sun, air, and water for which "all the world's a stage."- Finally we arrive at what is commonly but wrongly believed t<j be the raison d'etre of the whole science—weather forecasting. As former chief of the experts whose daily task was to prophesy, the author knows well the triumphs and tribulations attendant upon this "difficult subject, and most adroitly does he deal with them. He recalls the misplaced optimism of half a century ago, when it was thought that storms travelling eastward across the Atlantic'rnight be announced several days before they, reached Britain; we are told how the "New York Herald" joined with "The Times" in an endeavour to realise the project, and how the attempt was frustrated by the annoying proclivity of storm-centres to change their course without apparent rule or reason. Exactly the same thing happens with the'weather as it crosses the Tasman Sea- on its way from Aust tralia to New Zealand, thus making the task of the Dominion's forecasters also by no means an easy one. Sir Napier Shaw visualises the inevitable three-dimensional weather map of the future, and discusses the Norwegian method of prediction by means' of "frontal,analysis," or the study of atmospheric discontinuities, a subject which Dr. EJ Kidson, the Dominion's meteorologist, has fairly recently lucidly explained in the news columns of "The Post." • . i